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AUTHOR: 


MEAKIN,  FREDERICK 


TITLE: 


FUNCTION,  FEELING, 
AND  CONDUCT 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 

DA  TE : 

1910 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


Master  Negative  # 


BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARCKT 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


171 

M46 


Meakin,  Frederick. 

Function,  feeling,  and  conduct;  an  attempt  to  find  a  natural 
basis  for  ethical  law,  by  Frederick  Meakin  ...  New  York  and 
London,  G.  P.  Putnam's  sons,  1910. 


xvl  p.,  1 1..  270  p.     19i  cm. 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


l^Ethlcs.     2^SoclnI  ethics.  I.    Title. 


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Function, 
Feeling,  and  Conduct 


An  Attempt  to  Find  a  Natural  Basis  for 

Ethical  Law 


By 

Frederick  Meakin 

M.A.,  Ph.D.  (Harv.) 


Eof/cewrtr  o^p  61  dXifdeis  tQv  \brf<av  oit  tiJtvov  Tpbs  rb  elddvcu  XP^*^ 
lidrraroi  cTww,  dXXA  #cal  vpbs  rby  filov. — Aristotle 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New    York     and     London 

Zbe   fcniclietbocfter    pce00 

1910 


I 


COPYKIGHT,   1910 

BY 

FREDERICK  MEAKIN 

(  0   -%0L^ 


Vbe  ftnfclterboclier  ptcw,  flew  Sorik 


INTRODUCTION 

Natur  hat  weder  Kern 

Noch  Schale, 

Alles  ist  sie  mit  einemmale. 

Goethe. 

TLdvTfav  ■xpritui'Tfiiv  fifrpov  iarlv  Avdpwwot, 

Protagoras. 

OUR  thought  of  nature  is  a  defining  and  quali- 
fying thought.  We  speak  of  nature,  it  is 
true,  as  infinite.  And  the  mind,  exploring  nature, 
rests  at  no  given  term  in  its  progress,  but  finds  in 
each  phase  of  the  universal  revelation,  in  element, 
atom,  world,  or  system  of  worlds,  the  movement 
of  exhaustless  energy,  the  shifting  barriers  of 
interminable  being  changing  through  illimitable 
time.  But  though  the  mind's  progress  were  end- 
less it  were  a  process  nevertheless  of  endless 
delimitation.  Thought  is  thought  of  a  more 
or  less  particularised  content.  Whatever  we  see, 
whatever  we  think,  is,  in  the  very  fact  that  we 
think  or  see,  qualified  and  so  far  defined. 

Nature  is  thus  finite  as  object  of  thought, 
infinite  as  transcending  any  given  process  of 
thought.  It  is  the  ftmction  of  thought  to  define; 
to  seek  for  the  source,  essence,  office,  or  end  of  its 
object.    But  the  defining  thought,  impatient  of  the 

•  •• 
Ul 


IV 


Introduction 


limits  of  each  several  object,  and  searching  for  an 
ultimate  term  in  the  aim,  origin,  or  heart  of  nature 
as  object  in  general,  finds  no  such  term,  and 
confesses  in  the  concept  of  the  Infinite  the 
abandonment  of  its  search. 

But  the  mind  finds  no  less  interest  in  its  task 
because  its  task  is  interminable.  The  thought  that 
there  is  no  bound  to  its  activity  is,  rather,  its  most 
inspiring  thought.  The  mind*s  interest,  however, 
is  everywhere  specific.  It  looks  into  the  maze 
of  being  and  change  through  human  eyes ;  human 
feeling  prompts  its  attitude,  htmian  aims  direct 
its  activity.  In  contemplation  as  in  action  its 
interest  is  determined  by  its  own  constitution. 

In  this  constitution  is  foimd  much  that  is 
common  to  all  sentient  Hfe.  Man,  with  his  in- 
tellectual being,  shares  with  other  animals  certain 
animal  impulses.  He  has  appetites  which  crave 
satisfaction,  he  shrinks  from  pain  and  injury,  and 
he  is  commonly  ruled  by  the  strong  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  But  if,  abstracting  from  these 
common  impulses,  we  consider  only  w^hat  is 
characteristic  of  man,  his  reflective  and  creative 
intelligence,  we  find  him  taking  two  main  attitudes 
in  the  presence  of  nature  or  tmiversal  being  as  the 
means  and  medium  of  his  peculiar  activities. 

Of  these  two  main  attitudes,  one  is  exemplified 
in  the  sciences,  or  methods  of  knowing;  the 
other,  in  art,  morals,  and  religion,  through  which 
man  gives  expression  to  what  he  conceives  to  be 


Introduction 


the  more  perfect  forms  of  being.  Science,  the 
product  of  the  cognitive  interest,  is  content,  as 
science,  to  explore  facts,  or  to  discover  laws  'which 
embody  systems  of  facts ;  that  is,  to  take  nature  as 
it  finds  her.  Art,  morals,  and  religion,  on  the 
other  hand,  bring  with  them  a  measure  or  standard, 
and  search  the  facts  for  illustration  of  their 
own  exemplars;  or,  failing  the  search,  re-form 
the  facts  in  the  sense  of  their  several  demands. 
In  brief,  science,  as  descriptive  or  explanatory, 
rests,  with  all  its  abstractions,  in  the  actual;  art, 
morals,  and  religion,  as  normative,  seek  an  ideal, 
or  that  which,  rarely  exemplified  in  the  real,  shall, 
on  demand  of  the  imperious  interests  which  they 
represent,  give  finer  form  or  tendency  to  the 
real. 

This  distinction,  however,  may  not  be  taken  too 
strictly.  The  mind  is  not  a  mere  cluster  of  sepa- 
rable faculties  or  powers,  but  tends  as  an  organic 
whole  to  press  all  its  functions  into  the  service 
of  any  main  end.  The  cognising  subject  is  not 
content  simply  to  know,  indifferent  to  what  it  finds } 
the  field  which  science  selects  for  its  scrutiny  is 
taken  on  suggestion  of  some  human  aspiration  or 
need,  and  the  truth  which  it  most  affects  is  the 
truth  which  has  the  profoimdest  human  interest. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no  art  or  religion 
or  morals  without  knowledge.  Their  standards 
are  not  grasped  out  of  the  air.  Art  which  is  not 
natural  is  grotesque;  religion  which  in  its  deep 


VI 


Introduction 


Introduction 


vu 


4 


discontent  with  the  world  flies  to  worlds  unknown 
fades  into  a  vision;  morality,  flouting  at  experi- 
ence, unenlightened  by  self-knowledge,  becomes  an 
erratic  and  mischievous  habit,  a  vice.  Even  our 
ideals  are  in  relation  with  experience,  and  may  be 
proven  just  or  sane  only  by  the  test  of  experience. 
In  fine,  the  difference  between  the  actual  and  the 
ideal  marks  but  a  difference  in  the  attitude  of  the 
same  subject  or  soul  dealing  with  various  material 
and  looking  to  different  ends.  Here  the  matter 
of  our  thought  is  that  which  now  is;  there,  that 
which  we  seek,  which  we  will  to  be,  which  ought 
to  be.  The  actual  interests  us  as  in  relation  to 
the  ideal;  the  ideal  is  but  the  actual  shaped,  or 
to  be  shaped,  into  the  real  which  we  demand. 
And  what  we  know  of  this  formative  process  may 
possibly  itself  become  a  science. 

Meantime,  as  between  that  which  is  and  that 
which  ought  to  be,  philosophy,  the  anticipatory 
and  generalising  science,  must  mediate.  Htmaan 
life  is  a  craving,  a  tendency,  a  system  of  activi- 
ties moving  continually,  if  inconstantly,  to  their 
several  ends.  Science  discloses  the  actual  trend 
of  such  movements;  philosophy  must  define, 
if  possible,  their  rational  issue.  In  science  we 
keep  close  to  the  sensuous  fact,  the  experiential 
grounds  of  thought.  But  experience  awakens 
aspiration,  achievement  suggests  a  finer  achieve- 
ment, and  philosophy,  surveying  the  field  of  the 
known  and   searching  with  speculative  eye  the 


boundaries  of  knowledge,  mediates  between  the 
truth  clearly  seen  and  the  better  truth  obscurely 
divined.  Pressing  into  its  service  biology,  history, 
sociology,  psychology,  it  searches  for  the  true 
relation  between  the  imtoward  fact  and  that 
burning  human  impulse  which,  spuming  the  fact 
and  impatient  of  the  world  as  we  find  it,  too 
often  prompts  us,  wanting  the  guidance  of  know- 
ledge, to  the  creation  of  insubstantial  worlds  from 
the  stuff  of  our  dreams. 

Warned  by  the  errors  into  which  this  impulse 
has  led  us,  philosophy  has  leaned  of  late  towards 
natural  science  as  offering  assured  methods,  and 
assumes  to  have  established  by  means  of  its  new 
lore  a  solid  footing  in  the  real.  The  eternal  flux 
of  things  in  which  otir  human  destiny  is  caught 
appears  at  length  as  something  more  than  mere 
eddying  and  wash.  In  the  animate  world  at 
least,  in  the  long  sweep  of  biological  change,  and 
notably  in  the  development  of  human  manners 
and  thought,  there  is  evidence  of  melioration: 
history  is  written  as  a  progress,  and,  as  some 
would  have  it,  a  necessary  progress.  Our  current 
evolutional  theories,  in  fact,  are  in  a  sense  fatal- 
istic. Whatever  man  may  do  or  may  leave 
undone,  they  seem  to  maintain,  the  race  must 
advance.  But  himian  progress  cannot  be  inde- 
pendent of  human  activity.  Man  is  a  factor 
in  his  own  destiny,  is  himself  a  cosmic  force, 
and  if  he  is  fated  to  advance  he  is  fated  also 


Vlll 


Introduction 


to  make  adeqtiate  effort.  His  advance  is  condi- 
tioned by  his  effort. 

What  we  will  to  have  or  to  be,  to  know  or  to  do, 
is  thus  matter  of  more  than  present  or  personal 
moment.  Through  the  solidarity  of  human  in- 
terests it  bears  on  the  problem  of  human  destiny. 
And  moral  philosophy,  bom  of  our  interest  in  this 
problem  and  strengthened  now  by  discipline  in 
the  methods  of  natural  science,  returns  with 
fresh  interest  to  the  study  of  human  needs,  and 
with  fresh  hope  of  discerning  the  true  direction 
of  human  effort  or  the  rational  human  end. 

Our  attempt  here  is  in  fact  to  throw  a  little 
light  on  the  nature  of  this  rational  end.  The 
need  or  the  utility  of  any  such  attempt  is  some- 
times disputed.  The  moral  life,  it  is  said,  is  in- 
dependent of  the  philosophy  of  morals :  mankind 
needs  but  the  instinct  to  choose  its  immediate 
ends  and  the  ultimate  end  will  take  care  of  itself  j 
conscience,  the  moral  instinct,  suffices.  But  life, 
we  may  be  reminded,  grows  continually  more 
complex.  The  simplicity  of  manners  for  which 
"a  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules" 
were  enough  we  are  now  fast  forsaking,  and 
situations  arise  in  which  instinctive  morality 
or  the  common  moral  sense  is  at  fault.  In  fact 
the  part  played  by  instinct  in  morals  is  much 
overrated.  The  moral  habit  is  mainly  an  ac- 
quired habit.  It  may  assume  some  of  the  charac- 
ters of  an  instinct,  but  it  is,  strietly  speaking, 


Introduction 


IX 


a  tradition  rather  than  an  instinct  that  runs  with 
the  blood.  It  is  learned  by  each  generation  with 
infinite  pains  from  the  generation  which  went 
before;  and  that  which  is  directly  transmitted  is 
at  most  a  more  sensitive  moral  tissue,  so  to  speak, 
or  a  growing  responsiveness  to  moral  discipline 
and  to  the  suggestion  of  moral  ideas.  The 
necessity  for  the  serious  and  systematic  treatment 
of  moral  ideas  remains. 

And  in  the  discipline  upon  which  society  relies 
for  the  formation  of  the  moral  habit  this  necessity, 
it  may  be  admitted,  is  in  some  sense  recognised. 
Efforts  are  not  wanting  to  justify  the  moral 
demand  by  some  theory  or  some  certain  shreds 
of  theory.  But  though  there  is  in  the  common- 
sense  of  mankind  a  strong  inkling  of  the  rational 
groimds  of  this  demand,  which  lie  bedded  in  the 
structure  of  society  and  the  form  of  human  nature, 
it  occurs  to  but  few  that  there  is  need  to  work  out  a 
sustained  moral  theory.  And  men  find  the  effort 
to  construct  or  to  understand  such  a  theory 
fatiguing.  We  see  them  constantly  falling  back, 
in  their  speculative  indolence  and  their  dread  of 
change,  on  the  dogmas  of  tradition.  But  dogma 
is  fast  losing  its  force  as  mere  dogma,  and  its  in- 
stability weakens  the  force  of  the  moral  obligation 
which  it  was  invoked  to  support.  Even  hoary 
tradition  must  submit  to  scrutiny.  The  modem 
spirit,  stimulated  by  the  success  of  free  inquiry 
in  the  domain  of  natural  science,  searches  boldly 


Introduction 


Introduction 


XI 


in  every  domain,  and  not  even  the  moral  tradition 
is  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged.  Error  is  as  old 
as  truth,  and  we  demand  some  other  voucher  than 

age. 

With  reason,  then,  we  return  to  the  old  problem 
of  conduct,  and  search  once  more  for  the  ground 
and  unifying  principle  of  our  moral  judgments. 
The  course  of  humanity,  we  may  admit,  is  in  the 
more  civilised  communities  fairly  set  forwards. 
But  so  far  its  advance  is  more  evidently  material- 
istic than  moral,  and  there  are  races,  we  should 
remember,  which  are  apparently  stationary  or 
declinirg.i     Even  the  higher  types  of  our  species 
are  never  quite  free  from  peril  of  reversion  to  the 
animalism  of  the  lower.     Instance  the  arbitrament 
of  war.     The  moral  habit  indeed  sits  but  insecurely 
on  the  mass  of  mankind.     It  is,  we  may  say,  the 
last  great  gain  of  human  nature,  and  is  not  yet 
ingrained  or  organic;  and  its  supremacy  is  per- 
petually menaced  by  those  older  habits  which  were 
generated  in  the  long  brute  struggle  for  existence, 
and  which  are  in  fact  instinctive,  hereditary,  and 

organic. 

To  check  the  violence  of  the  brutish  habits 
thus  entailed  on  the  race,  society  itself  resorts 
to  violence.    Organised  as  the  state  and  armed 

•  It  is  indisputable  that  much  the  greater  part  of  mankind 
has  never  shown  a  particle  of  desire  that  its  civil  institutions 
should  be  improved  since  the  moment  when  external  complete- 
ness was  first  given  to  them  by  their  en^bodiment  in  some 
permanent  record.— H.  Maine:  Ancient  Law,  chap.  ii. 


with  irresistible  force,  it  applies  this  force 
steadily  and  systematically  to  the  repression 
of  crime — that  is,  of  acts  which  threaten  the 
peace  and  dignity  of  the  state.  And  few  will 
question  the  need  or  the  right  of  such  repres- 
sion. But  as  we  cannot,  on  the  one  hand,  leave 
the  formation  of  the  moral  habit  and  the  de- 
velopment of  moral  feeling  to  tradition  and 
dogma,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  be 
content  simply  to  support  the  strong  arm  of  the 
state.  The  effect  of  force  on  the  control  of 
conduct  is  mainly  restrictive  or  negative,  and  it 
reaches  no  farther  than  the  prescription  or  rule. 
Or  if  by  continuous  imposition  of  the  rule  force 
does  at  length  induce  a  habit,  the  habit  is  mechan- 
ical rather  than  vital.  A  true  moral  principle, 
on  the  contrary,  works  as  an  affirmative  impulsion 
of  the  will,  appearing  in  the  free  expression  of  the 
nature  of  the  volitional  subject  rather  than  in  the 
curtailment  of  its  freedom.  It  is,  in  a  word,  a 
principle  of  life. 

Our  attempt  in  the  following  pages  is  to  trace 
out  the  constitution  and  general  working  of  such 
a  principle,  or  to  undertake,  in  other  words,  a 
fresh  statement  of  the  philosophy  or  general 
basis  of  morals  as  grotmded  in  human  nature. 
If  there  be  a  science  of  morals  it  must  of  course 
rest  on  such  a  basis.  It  need  hardly  be  said,  how- 
ever, that  in  an  attempt  of  this  kind  little  that  is 
new  can  be  offered.     Our  doctrine  is  at  least  as 


fw 


xn 


Introduction 


old  as  Aristotle.  All  that  is  tindertaken,  in  fact, 
is  to  set  forth  old  truths  in  newer  phrase,  to 
piece  out  certain  half-truths  with  rounder  state- 
ment, and  to  pave  the  way  for  a  comprehensive 
theory  of  morals,  based  on  psychological  and 
naturalistic  grounds,  by  means  of  which  some 
at  least  of  the  old  feuds  may  be  appeased  and  a 
firmer  and  more  intelligent  moral  habit  may  be 
made  possible.  But  to  accomplish  even  so  little 
were  much. 


CONTENTS 


SECTION  I. 


Organisation,  Causation,  and  Finality  in  Nature. 


I.    The  General  Unity  of  Nature 


III.     Organisms  and  their  Ends 


PAGB 

I 


II.     The  Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and 

Mind  .....       lo 


aa 


SECTION  II. 

Basis  and  Form  of  Volitional  Choice 

IV.     The  Conscious  Choice  of  Ends  and 
its  Relation  to  Pleasure  and  Pain 

V.    Functional  Conditions  of  Pleasure 
and  Pain  ..... 

VI.     Determination  of  Conscious  Func- 
tions by  Volitional  Ends 

SECTION  III 

Organisation  op  Volitional  Ends. 

VII.  Principles  of  Organisation  Exam- 
ined: Harmony;  Reason;  the 
Moral    Sense ;     Self-Development 

xiii 


30 


44 


57 


69 


XIV 


Contents 


Contents 


XV 


PAOB 


PAGB 


Si 


I 


VIII.     Pleasure  as  an  Organising  Principle      86 


IX.    Comparison  and  Estimate  of  Pleas- 
urable Functions 

X.    The   General  or   Rationalised  Vo- 
litional End       .... 

SECTION  IV. 
The  Associative  Life  and  the  Moral  End. 

XI.     Social  Union  Necessary  to  Human 
Development     .... 


96 


108 


116 


XII.     Independent    Origin   of   the  Social 

Instincts   .         .         .         •         .124 


XIII.  Principles  of  the  Social  Union 

XIV.  Morality  the  Basis  of  the  Social  Union 

XV.    Progressive  Character  of  the  Moral 
Law  .         •         .         •         • 

XVI.    Prescriptive  Morality  and  the  Moral 
Spirit        .         .         .         •         • 

SECTION  V. 
Moral  Discipline. 

The  State's  Right  to  Punish  . 
Punishment  and  Responsibility 


134 
143 

154 
162 


XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 


Responsibility  as  Related  to  Free- 
dom and  Causation  in  Willing 


x68 
178 

18S 


XX.     Freedom  as  Related  to  the  Volitional 

Idea  .....     199 

XXI.     Moral  Freedom  and  Moral  Responsi- 
bility        .....     209 


SECTION  VI. 


Relation  of  Morality  to  Happiness. 


XXII.     General  Considerations  . 


219 


XXIII.  Query:  Does  Morality  Demand  of 

the    Individual    Uncompensated 
Sacrifice?  .....     228 

XXIV.  Question     Discussed:    Unconscious 

Effects  of  Morality    and  Immor- 
ality .         .         .         .         .232 

XXV.     Discussion      Continued:    Conscious 

Morality;  Conscience  .  .  .239 

XXVI.  Discussion  Continued:  Value  of 
Moral  Principles  Seen  only  in 
Life  as  a  Whole.         .         .         .249 

XXVII.  Discussion  Concluded:  The  More 
Complete  the  Virtue  the  More 
Completely  is  Virtue  its  Own 
Reward     .....     257 


XVI 


Contents 


PAGB 


XXVIII. 


SECTION  VII. 

Scope  of  Morality. 

Moral  Discipline  Presupposes 
Other  Disciplines.  All  Merged  in 
Religion 


Index 


264 


271 


Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


SECTION  I 

Organisation,  Causation,  and  Finality  in 

Nature 

CHAPTER  I 
the  general  unity  of  nature 


i 

I 


NATURE  is  apprehended  by  the  knowing 
subject  as  a  cosmos  or  system.  Nowhere  is 
unreason,  caprice,  or  chance;  everywhere  we  find 
order,  character  or  persistent  quality,  law.  We 
mean,  in  fact,  by  the  nature  of  a  thing  the  essential 
law  or  method  of  its  being,  assuming  as  of  course 
that  it  has  such  a  nature  or  law.  The  fruit  tree  we 
see  yielding  fruit  after  his  kind.  Gold  has  a 
specific  gravity  of  19.33  and  fuses  at  a  temperature 
of  1250  degrees.  Centigrade.  Such  is  the  nature 
of  these  things.  And  in  the  general  term  Nature 
we  express  our  conviction  that  being  in  general 
is  a  being  in  accordance  with  law. 

But  the  order  of  nature  is  no  mere  mechanic 
order.  The  mechanic  view  of  nature  follows 
from  the  conception  of  matter,  the  stuff  of  which 
nature  is  assumed  to  be  compounded,  as  inert, 


il 


2      Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

uninformed,    moved    only    by    alien    influence. 
But  chemistry  and  physics  have  banished  this 
conception.    There  is  no  dead  matter.     Matter 
in  its  minutest  divisions  as  in  its  most  ponderous 
masses  is  vitalised  by  an  immanent  principle, 
reacts  to  all  agency  by  inner  determination,  and 
asserts   through  all    change    its   own  elemental 
quality  or  nature.     By  abstraction  we  dissociate 
matter  so-called  from  this  animating  principle  and 
conceive  of  it  then  as  the  mere  lifeless  residue. 
Such  dissociation,  however,  is  but  the  act  of  the 
mind.     In  all  matter,  as  real,  this  principle  per- 
dures,  yielding  up  nothing  of  its  own  even  to 
preponderant  force,  but  expressing  itself  in  every 
resultant  with  its  measure  of  power  and  in  its  own 
peculiar  mode.      Matter  is  in  fact  only  as  its 
principle  is,  or  finds  characteristic   expression. 
And  this  is  true  whether  we  contemplate  an  atom, 
a  world,  or  the  whole  breadth  of  the  apprehensible 
universe.    Wide  as  we  may  range  we  find  an 
inner  principle  always  at  work,  and  as  the  eye  at 
length  wearies  or  thought  droops  on  flagging 
pinion,  we  are  brought  to  the  conclusion  that 
all  things  are  related  to  all,  and  that  in  all  things 
the  moving  principle  is  one. 

We  are  thus  led  to  regard  the  activity  of  nature 
as  the  movement  of  life,  and  the  union  of  her 
elements,  masses,  and  systems  as  an  organic  union. 
Inasmuch,  however,  as  nature  is  never  viewed 
as  a  finished  system,  no  end  can  be  assigned, 


Unity  of  Nature  3 

no  distinctive  character  can  be  imputed,  to 
nature  as  a  systematised  whole.  Ends  are  as- 
signed, mechanisms  and  organisms  are  defined, 
by  comparison  from  without.  Nature  is  never 
seen  from  without.  All  being,  all  qualities,  all 
ends,  and  the  means  to  all  ends  fall  within  the 
being  of  nature,  which  thus  eludes  all  real  defi- 
nition. That  which  we  do  indeed  apprehend  or 
define  is  some  determinate  tendency  or  aspect  of 
nature:  her  elemental  affinities,  the  gravitation 
of  her  masses,  the  evolution  of  suns  and  systems, 
the  development  of  man.  And  the  terms  by  which 
we  are  fain  to  characterise  that  which  is  in  being 
and  character  exhaustless,  terms  such  as  Nature, 
God,  the  Absolute,  the  Infinite,  the  Universe,  the 
All-Real,  the  One,  are  but  symbols  which  define 
no  more  than  the  mode  by  which  we  arrive  at  the 
limit  of  definition.^ 

When  therefore  we  say  that  universal  nature 
subsists  in  vital  or  organic  union  we  shall  not  be 
understood  as  imputing  to  nature  the  specific 
chamcters  of  man  or  of  any  of  the  organisms 
which  we  know.  We  mean  no  more  than  that 
natural  processes  show  such  interdependence  and 

>  Perhaps  we  know  only  some  of  the  elements  of  which 
existence,  considered  as  a  whole,  is  composed.  At  all  events, 
it  is  here  impossible  to  verify  the  use  of  analogy,  because  the 
whole  is  never  given.  .  .  .  Neither  matter  nor  spirit,  neither 
multiplicity  nor  unity,  neither  being  nor  becoming,  are  fit 
to  be  ultimate  expressions  of  existence. — Harald  HOffding: 
Mind^  April,  1905. 


4      Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Unity  of  Nature 


interrelation  and  yield  such  clear  proof  of  inner 
direction  that  they  cannot  be  adeqtiately  conceived 
as  lifeless  or  mechanical  processes  controlled  wholly 
from  without.     Each  thing  is  in  itself  a  centre  and 
origin  of  influence.     But  through  this  influence 
which  by  nature  it  exerts,  and  the  influence  to 
which  by  nature  it  responds,  it  is  related  to  all.    As 
it  acts  or  reacts  it  is ;  and  each  thing  is  just  what 
it  is  because  all  else,  being  what  it  is,  evokes  from 
each  thing  its  characteristic  activity.    The  needle 
of  the  compass  varies  with  the  variations  in  the 
constitution  of  the  earth's  crust.    The  light  of 
suns  incalculably  remote  flecks  the  plate  on  which 
the  astronomer  maps  the  heavens.     Hence  the 
universe  of  nature,  uniting  all  elements  in  sensitive 
and  constant  interaction,  each  and  all  moved  by 
an  immanent  principle,  may  be  called  a  living 

imiverse. 

And  this  universe,  in  virtue  of  its  principle,  is 
one.  Not  that  we  can  shut  in  the  illimitable  by 
a  term.  Nature's  universal  being  has  no  assignable 
bounds  and  is  therefore  no  mere  arithmetical  unit. 
And  as  inclusive  of  all  that  is  real  it  cannot  be 
adequately  expressed  by  such  terms  as  Power, 
Wisdom,  Goodness,  or  any  mere  abstraction.  It 
is  as  including  no  insulated  content,  as  nowhere 
disparted  by  any  absolute  line,  as  centred  at  each 
point  of  its  being,  that  the  universe  is  one. 

Nature,  we  say  then,  though  eluding  definition, 
offers  to  our  apprehension  a  certain  imity  in 


difference:  a  unity  of  system  with  ineffaceable 
distinctions  in  quality  and  mode.  And  the 
familiar  law  in  which  this  unity  in  difference 
is  implied  is  the  law  of  causation.  Nothing,  we 
say,  stands  imsupported,  or  in  its  own  right 
alone;  nothing  happens  without  a  cause.*  And 
we  refer  each  cause  to  an  antecedent  cause  in 
infinite  series. 

But   every   effect  demands,   in    strictness,   a 
universe  of  causes.    A  spark  may  start  a  confla- 
gration.    We  assume,  however,  in  collaboration 
with  the  spark,  an  indefinite  number  of  causal 
agents.    We  assume,  for  instance,  the  properties 
of  oxygen  and  of  certain  elements  with  which  at  a 
certain  temperature  it  combines.    But  inasmuch 
as  the  collaborating  causes,  which  in  so  far  as  they 
are  constants  may  be  taken  for  granted,  are  not 
the  causes  in  which  for  the  time  being  any  practi- 
cal interest  centres,  they  are  commonly  relegated 
to  the  uncertain  rank  of  conditions.     Yet  the  con- 
ditions are  part  of  the  cause.    An  event  may  be 
termed,  in  fact,  either  condition  or  cause  as  a 
shifting  interest  shifts  the  line  of  inquiry.    And 
as  we  may  trace  back  from  the  event  an  indefinite 
chain  of  causes,  so  we  may  diverge  at  any  link  in 
the  chain  and  from  the  point  of  divergence  trace 

>  Hoi'  W  aS  rb  yiyp6tuvop  ihr'  atrlov  rivbs  i^  dpdyinis  ylyv&rdtw  iravrl 
ydfiidiifaTovx<aplsatTlovy4v€<rivax^iw. — ^Plato:  TinuBtis.v.  a  8  A. 

Now  everything  that  becomes  or  is  created  must  of  ne- 
cessity be  created  by  some  cause,  for  nothing  can  be  cre- 
ated without  a  cause.     (Jowett's  tr.) 


6      Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

a  new  causal  series  or  an  indefinite  number  of 

such  series. 

And  the  multiplication  of  efiEects  is  as  well 
recognised  as  the  plurality  of  causes.  Any  mem- 
ber of  a  causal  series  may  be  regarded,  in  fact, 
as  either  end  or  origin  of  an  infinite  number  of 
converging  lines  of  causation  whose  distal  ex- 
tremities are  infinitely  remote.  That  is,  the  uni- 
versal activity  is  represented  in  every  event.  As 
between  causes  and  effects  any  given  event  thus 
stands  like  the  common  vertex  of  a  double  cone. 
And  as  the  modes  of  causal  influence  may  be 
expressed,  wherever  we  have  adequate  knowledge, 
under  the  form  of  unvarying  laws,  the  causal 
event,  conceived  in  its  full  significance,  implies  not 
only  an  infinite  series  but  an  infinite  system. 
Latent  in  the  conception  of  cause  is  the  conception 
of  the  systematic  unity  of  nature.  Nothing  is 
real  but  as  the  universal  reality  is.  AU  fugitive 
and  finite  being  is  relative  to  that  for  which  the 
Infinite  or  the  Absolute  is  our  symbol. ^ 

But  we  note  in  certain  groups  of  phenomena  a 
stricter  and  more  obvious  unity  than  that  which 
binds  all  things  to  all  in  causal  or  systematic 
union.  What  we  call  vital  phenomena  are  vital 
in  a  more  special  sense.  Where  such  phenomena 
appear  we  find  a  definite  organism  or  body  within 

«  The  Absolute  is  its  appearances,  it  really  is  all  and  ev- 
ery one  of  them.— F.  H.  Bradley:  Appearance  and  Reality, 
p.  486. 


Unity  of  Nature  7 

which  the  lines  of  causal  influence  all  converge 
to  a  definite  end,  namely,  the  conservation  of  the 
body  in  the  discharge  of  its  functions.  We 
define  life  in  fact,  provisionally  at  least,  as  the 
principle  which  effects  this  convergence  or  appears 
in  the  tendency  to  this  end. 

Every  vital  system  is  therefore,  even  when 
imconscious,  in  a  sense  teleological.  It  presents 
a  synergy  of  functions  tending  in  their  discharge 
to  the  conservation  of  the  system  and,  as  incident 
to  this  office,  to  the  production  of  other  systems 
in  type  like  itself.  So  far  as  we  can  see,  however, 
no  physical  or  chemical  law  is  suspended  in  the 
accomplishment  of  the  vital  end.  The  living 
body  is  still  incorporated  in  the  body  of  nature. 
The  force  of  gravitation,  for  instance,  is  exerted 
on  every  particle  of  organised  matter;  and  it 
appears,  if  we  allow  for  the  influence  of  organic 
conditions,  that  the  chemical  elements  in  any 
organism  show  their  characteristic  chemical  re- 
actions. But  while  the  specific  forms  of  energy 
follow  within  the  organism  their  own  specific  laws, 
they  are  all  made  subordinate  to  the  vital  end. 
Or  perhaps  it  were  more  accurate  to  say,  since 
subordination  of  a  law  might  seem  to  imply  in- 
fraction or  suspension  of  the  law,  that  the  interac- 
tion of  the  elements  under  the  conditions  presented 
in  the  living  body  constitutes  in  itself  the  vital 
principle  which  dominates  the  body.^     Without 

»  Compare  Kant's  suggestion:  Es  als  unausgemacht  dahin- 


8       Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


|l( 


proof,  therefore,  of  such  infraction  or  suspension, 
we  may  reasonably  infer  from  the  general  validity 
of  the  elemental  laws  as  disclosed  by  physiological 
research,  that  organic  causation  is  but  a  special 
case  of  common  causation,  or  of  undiscovered 
activities  which  work  within  the  sphere  of  such 
causation. 

The  doctrine  of  finality  in  nature  then,  a 
doctrine  of  which  philosophy  is  coy  as  in  some 
way  subversive  of  natural  law,  need  not  alarm 
the  most  thorough-going  naturalist.  It  is,  as  we 
regard  it,  but  an  exemplification  of  such  law.  The 
philosophical  objection  is  valid,  no  doubt,  as 
against  the  assumption  of  conscious  prevision  in 
all  natural  tendency  to  an  end.  But  there  is 
finality  in  nature  before  consciousness  appears. 
It  is  characteristic  of  all  vital  systems.  It  is 
most  obvious,  however,  in  the  activities  of  animal 
organisms,  the  structures  of  which  are  deemed 
to  be  intelligible  only  when  their  office  or  end  is 
understood .  Physiology ,  as  a  science  of  functions , 
has  indeed  little  to  tell  us  but  of  adaptations 
to  an  end.  The  heart,  it  appears,  is  formed  with 
reference  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood «,  the 
stomach   anticipates    the    food  which  it   must 


gestellt  wird,  ob  nicht  in  dem  uns  unbekannten  inneren 
Grunde  der  Natur  selbst  die  physisch-mechanische  und  die 
Zweckverbindung  an  denselben  Dingen  in  einem  Prinzip 
zusammenhangen  mOgen. — Kant:  Krit.  der  Urtheilskraft, 
zweiter  theil,  sec.  70. 


Unity  of  Nature 


assimilate;  and  no  instrument  consciously  devised 
for  an  end  is  comparable  with  the  brain  in  the 
delicacy  and  completeness  with  which  it  is  adapted 
to  conserve  and  develop  the  organism  in  which 
it  has  its  seat. 

And  one  might  apply  the  concept  of  an  end 
to  the  action  of  nature  wherever  we  see  a  system 
of  causes  steadily  converging  to  a  common  result. 
But  there  is  risk  of  making  the  concept  useless  by 
over-expansion.  It  suffices  to  note  that  nature  is, 
in  any  aspect,  a  process;  that  the  principles  by 
which  the  process  is  guided  are  definite  and 
stable;  that  the  thing  which  is  tends  in  a  determi- 
nate manner  to  become  the  thing  which  shall  be. 
And  we  may  add  that  among  all  natural  processes 
there  is  interaction  and  communion.  Nature's 
common  theme  is  the  systematic  or  organic  unity 
of  nature. 


Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and  Mind     1 1 


t  I' 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SYSTEMATIC  UNITY  OF  BODY  AND  MIND 

WHEN  we  come  to  deal  with  consciousness, 
however,  and  especiaUy  with  the  rational 
self-consciousness  of  man.  we  discover  what 
appears  to  be  a  break  in  the  system  of  nature. 
The  lines  of  causation  here  seem  to  be  interrupted. 
We  have**  thought'*  on  the  one  side  and  **matter*' 
on  the  other,  and,  finding  it  hard  to  understand 
how  the  movement  of  matter  may  be  transmuted 
into  the  activity  of  thought,  we  rest,  though  un- 
easily, in  a  sort  of  dualism.  Here  apparently  are 
two  separate  realms,  the  realm  of  body  and  the 
realm  of  mind.  And  the  gap  which  divides  them, 
it  is  urged,  is  no  mere  gap  in  our  knowledge,  but 
is  one  which  cannot  be  stopped  by  any  conceivable 
extension  of  our  knowledge;  the  chasm  is  and 
must  remain  impassable.* 

«  Pour  ce  que  d'un  c6t6  j'ai  une  claire  et  distincte  idle 
de  moi-mtoe  en  tant  que  je  suis  seulement  une  chose  qui 
pense  et  non  6tendue.  et  que  d'un  autre  j'ai  une  idle  distircte 
du  corps  en  tant  qu'il  est  seulement  une  chose  Itendue  et  qui 
ne  pense  point,  il  est  certain  que  moi.  c'est-^-dire  mon  Ame. 
par  laqueUe  je  suis  ce  que  je  suis,  est  enti^rement  et  vlnta- 

lO 


To  the  naive  consciousness  this  problem  in 
causation  does  not  occur.  For  the  plain  man 
pain  is  without  question  the  effect  of  a  blow,  and 
it  is  the  will  which  as  cause  nerves  the  arm  to 
strike  in  retaliation  of  the  blow. 

And  even  cultivated  minds  glide  over  the 
problem  with  easy  assumption.  Certain  evolu- 
tionists, ignoring,  it  would  seem,  the  question  of 
the  commensurability  of  physical  and  psychical 
terms,  class  consciousness  as  a  specific  kind  of 
force.  It  is  simply  the  equivalent  of  so  much 
physical  force  from  which,  or  into  which,  it  is 
converted.  Feeling  or  idea  or  will  ranks  thus, 
without  more  ado,  in  its  place  in  the  vast  scheme 
of  forces  to  which  the  universe  is  by  our  physical 
philosophies  commonly  reduced;  and  conscious- 
ness, as  a  refined  kind  of  force,  is  brought  un- 
der the  general  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  or,  as  the  phrase  once  ran,  the  persist- 
ence of  force.  ^ 

blement  distincte  de  mon  corps,  et  qu'elle  peut  6tre  ou  exister 
sans  lui. — Descartes:    Med.  Sixihne. 

Nee  corpus  mentem  ad  cogitandum,  nee  mens  corpus  ad 
motum,  neque  ad  quietem,  nee  ad  aliquid  (si  qtiid  est)  aliud 
determinare  potest. — Spinoza:  Ethices,  pars  iii.,  prop.  ii. 

1  Variotis  classes  of  facts  thus  unite  to  prove  that  the  law 
of  metamorphosis,  which  holds  among  the  physical  forces, 
holds  equally  between  them  and  the  mental  forces.  Those 
modes  of  the  Unknowable  which  we  call  motion,  heat,  light, 
chemical  affinity,  etc.,  are  alike  transformable  into  each  other, 
and  into  those  modes  of  the  Unknowable  which  we  distinguish 
as  sensation,  emotion,  thought:  these  in  their  turns  being 


12    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct, 


Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and  Mind     13 


*  But  to  this  the  psychologist,  tracing  the  relation 
of  cerebration  to  thought,  demurs.  The  doctrine 
of  the  conservation  of  energy,  he  insists,  is  a  merely 
physical  doctrine,  resting  on  physical  data  and 
applicable  to  physical  processes  alone;  and  con- 
sciousness, as  distinguished  from  its  physiological 
concomitants,  cannot  be  classed  as  a  force  in  the 
sense  in  which  this  doctrine  is  properly  held. 
The  activity  of  the  mind  is  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  stroke  of  a  piston  or  the  movement 
of  a  muscle.  The  symbolism  of  speech,  it  is  true, 
suggests  the  comparison.  Nothing  is  commoner 
than  to  speak  of  the  weakness  or  the  energy  of  the 
will.  But  this,  if  we  take  our  terms  strictly,  is  mere 
metonomy.  We  impute  to  the  will  the  energy 
of  the  inhibitions  and  movements  which  attend 
the  formation  and  execution  of  the  will.  But 
there  is  in  the  execution  of  the  will  no  transfor- 
mation of  a  so-called  psychical  force  into  physical 
force.  No  energy  is  imparted  to  the  muscles 
by  the  volitional  idea  as  mere  idea.  The  energy 
which  is  liberated  in  the  movements  of  the  body  is 
energy  which  was  stored  in  the  body.  The  series 
of  changes  from  the  sensory  organ  inwards  to  the 
brain,  and  outwards  from  the  brain  to  the  muscles 
which  respond  to  the  sensory  stimulus,  is  a  series 
without  a  break;  consciousness,  taken  in  its  ordi- 


directly  or  indirectly  re-transformable  into  the  original  shapes 
— Herbert  Spencer:  First  Principles,  chap,  viii.,  sec  71  (4th 
ed.). 


nary  abstract  sense,  never  for  an  instant  interrupts 
the  series.  That  is  to  say,  consciousness  absorbs 
no  cerebral  energy,  cerebration  does  not  cease 
when  consciousness  begins,  and  the  physical  series 
and  the  psychical  series  must  be  conceived  as  in 
this  respect  distinct.  The  operations  of  the  mind , 
if  we  share  the  psychologist's  view,  never  occur 
in  the  strict  line  of  neural  or  cerebral  change.^ 

It  follows  further,  if  causation  is  restricted,  as 
it  commonly  is,  to  changes  in  the  form  in  which 
energy  is  exerted,  that  the  relation  between  body 
and  mind  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  causal  relation. 
My  volition,  as  a  merely  psychical  fact,  is  not, 
in  this  view,  the  cause  of  the  act  by  which  I  strike 
down  a  foe  or  lift  up  a  friend.  The  cause  must 
be  sought  in  the  liberation  of  cerebral  and  muscular 
tensions  accompanying  the  formation  and  exe- 
cution of  the  volitional  idea.  So  the  psycholo- 
gist insists.  There  being  here  no  interaction,  no 
transformation  of  forces,  parallelism  or  concomi- 
tance is  all  that  we  can  assert.    We  must  give  up 

»  L*id6e  n'intervient  jamais  physiquement  et  de  mani^re 
k  faire  br^che  au  m6canisme  universel. — ^A.  Fouill6e:  Exist, 
et  Devel.  de  la  Volont^;  Rev.  Philos.,  Juin,  1892,  p.  597. 

It  is  never  possible  to  arrive,  by  way  of  a  molecular  mechan- 
ics, at  any  sort  of  psychical  quality  or  process.  .  .  .  Psychical 
processes  refuse  to  submit  to  any  one  of  our  physical 
measures  of  energy;  and  the  physical  molecular  processes, 
so  far  as  we  are  able  to  follow  them,  are  seen  to  be  transformed, 
variously  enough,  into  one  another,  but  never  directly  into 
psychical  qualities. — ^Wundt:  Prin.  of  Phys.  Psychology,  vol. 
i.,  chap,  iii.,  sec.  5  (Titchener's  tr.,  p.  102). 


5  ' 


14     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

the  causal  relation,  it  would  seem,  in  dealing  with 
the  relations  of  body  and  mind,  and  take  up, 
with  more  or  less  protest,^  the  doctrine  of  pre- 
established  harmony  in  new  form. 

It  may  appear,  however,  that  there  is  a  mis- 
understanding here,  or  at  least  that  the  **gap" 
which  we  are  supposed  to  have  found  is  by  no 
means  tmique,  or  so  effective  in  disrupting  the 
scheme  of  things  as  speculative  thought  has 
asstmied.  The  physicist,  dealing  with  the  object- 
ive world,  is  naturally  most  interested  in  that 
attribute  of  things  which  is  the  most  decisive  test 
of  their  objectivity — ^their  capacity,  namely,  to 
resist  or  to  overcome  resistance.  This  attribute 
the  psychologist  reduces,  with  some  variation 
of  detail,  to  terms  of  the  sense  of  pressure  and 
strain  and  of  muscular  movement;  and  it  is  from 
this  attribute  that  we  form  the  idea  of  matter 
as  the  seat  of  energy  or  power.  A  step  further, 
and  energy  or  power  is  itself  dissociated  from 
matter,  which  is  thus  left  dead  and  inert.  But 
the  energy  thus  dissociated  in  thought  is  never 
dissociated  in  fact.  Nor  can  we  in  fact  isolate 
either  matter  or  power  from  such  attributes  as 
heat,  light,  colour,  or  sound.  Some  such  attri- 
butes ii5iere  in  every  material  object,  inseparably 

«  Constant  parallelism  plus  absolute  separation  is  logically 
so  unstable  a  position  that  the  theory  either  lapses  into  some 
form  of  crude  monism,  or  one  series  is  in  the  end  subordinated 
to  the  other.— James  Ward;  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism, 
vol.  i.,  lect.  VI. 


Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and  Mind     15 

associated  with  that  capacity  for  exerting  or 
resisting  pressure  which  is  the  most  convincing 
proof  that  we  are  dealing  with  such  an  object. 
Such  inseparable  association,  however,  is  taken 
for  identity.  All  phenomena,  it  is  assumed,  are 
reducible  to  forms  of  force.  It  is  believed,  for  in- 
stance, that  we  reach  the  real  nature  of  colour  and 
sound  when  we  ** reduce*'  them  to  vibrations,  that 
is,  to  projected  impressions  of  the  sense  of  pressure 
or  strain  or  muscular  effort.  But  no  such  reduc- 
tion is  in  fact  possible.  Visual  and  auditory  sen- 
sations are  not  dermal  or  tendinous  or  muscular 
sensations.  We  may  find,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, that  vibrations  will  be  accompanied  by, 
or  as  we  say  * 'produce,"  impressions  of  colour  or 
sound.  But  as  colour  cannot  be  identified  with 
sound,  neither  colour  nor  sound  can  be  identified 
with  vibrations.  Colour,  sound,  and  vibrations 
refer  each  to  independent  sensory  data,  and  how- 
ever closely  they  may  be  associated  as  states  or 
qualities  of  objects,  their  differences  cannot  be 
effaced  nor  should  their  sources  be  confused.^ 

If  therefore  the  philosophical  demand  for 
unity  requires  the  resolution  of  all  differences  into 
identity,  we  have  here,  in  the  forms  of  our 
sensibility,  other  insuperable  obstacles  to  unity. 

»  Compare  Berkeley:  "But  if  we  take  a  close  and  accurate 
view  of  the  matter,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  we  never  see 
and  feel  one  and  the  same  object.  That  which  is  seen  is  one 
thing,  and  that  which  is  felt  is  another." — Essay  towards 
a  New  Theory  of  Vision,  sec.  49. 


i6     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and  Mind     1 7 


Here  again,  an  alarmist  might  say,  in  the  so- 
called  continuum  of  the  material  universe  itself, 
occurs  many  times  the  impassable  chasm,  and 
no  man  can  tell,  until  the  psychologist  shall 
have  definitely  counted  our  senses,  how  many 
such  gaps  must  be  filled  to  restore  nature 
whole.  But  we  make  no  awful  pause  here, 
nor  tremble  for  the  solidarity  of  the  imiverse 
or  the  unity  of  knowledge.  We  ignore  the 
break.  The  objective  associations  of  sense  are 
so  close  and  constant  that  we  assume  identity 
in  spite  of  difference.  Light,  we  say,  ignoring 
the  difference,  is  the  vibration  of  ether;  heat 
is  a  mode  of  motion;  and  the  abstraction  Energy 
or  Force,  drawn  from  the  deliverances  of  a  par- 
ticular sense  but  clothed  with  attributes  furnished 
by  every  sense,  is  treated  as  the  ultimate  reality 

for  all. 

But  between  the  thing  and  the  thinker,  between 
the  characters  which  we  impute  to  an  object 
and  the  thought  which  we  impute  to  the  subject, 
no  such  inseparable  association  obtains.  Here 
is  a  distinction  which,  once  recognised,  we  cannot 
ignore.  We  find  here  a  line  which  seems  to  isolate 
the  ego  in  every  man  from  the  world,  and  even 
from  the  body  which  we  regard  as  the  immediate 
Instrument  of  the  ego.  On  the  one  side  of  this  line 
lies  the  whole  material  realm,  marked  indeed 
by  endless  distinctions  of  qtiality,  but  represented 
by  what  is  practically  a  single  attribute,  variously 


hypostatised  as  substance,  matter,  energy,  or 
force.  On  the  other  side  of  this  line  lies  the  realm 
of  mind,  and  there  this  attribute  fails.  The 
activities  of  thought  are  inaccessible  to  any 
sense,  actual  or  constructive,  of  pressure  or  touch. 
We  apply  to  them  forms  of  speech  moulded  to  the 
needs  of  outer  experience,  and  talk  of  a  psychical 
substance,  assuming  a  fund  of  energy  in  the  mind ; 
but  we  are  convinced,  on  reflection,  that  the 
terms  are  figurative  and  that  spiritual  and  material 
** forces**  are  really  distinct.  The  subjective 
realm  is  thus  conceived  apart.  The  common 
attribute,  energy  or  force,  in  virtue  of  which  we 
waive  all  insoluble  difference  in  the  objective 
world,  fails  us  here,  or  must  be  understood  in  a 
wholly  different  sense.  And  the  unifying  effort 
of  philosophy  so  far  fails.  The  cleavage  seems 
absolute.  The  imdisciplined  mind  leaps  the 
chasm  here  as  even  reflective  minds  leap  it  else- 
where. But  philosophy,  having  once  looked  into 
its  depths,  despairs.  Between  the  inner  thought 
and  the  outer  thing,  which  includes  the  brain  of 
the  thinker,  runs  a  seam  which  apparently  dis- 
rupts the  universe  of  being. 

Hence  the  dualism  in  our  philosophy.  Body, 
with  all  its  attributes,  we  assume  to  be  in  nature 
or  in  man  mere  energy  or  force.  The  synthetic 
habit  is  in  external  perception  so  strong  that 
we  waive  all  distinctions  of  quality,  virtually 
reducing  all  attributes  to  one.     But  mind  we 


1 8     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and  Mind     19 


II 


cannot  reduce  to  mere  force.  Or  if  by  analogy 
we  resolve  the  characters  of  mind  into  a  so-called 
psychical  force,  the  two  forms  of  force,  the  physical 
and  the  psychical,  are  left  inconvertible.  Body 
must  stand  for  ever,  it  is  averred,  in  irreconcilable 
opposition  over  against  mind. 

But  such  opposition  is  after  all  mere  difference. 
It  is  indeed  a  difference  which  we  cannot  resolve 
away  or  ignore.  But  it  avails  no  more  to  break 
up  xhe  systematic  unity  of  body  and  mind  than 
the  irresoluble  differences  which  we  find  among 
sensible  qualities  serve  to  break  up  the  systematic 
unity  of  a  physical  object  or  of  external  nature. 
There  can  be  little  doubt,  in  fact,  that  if  we  knew 
and  always  had  known  the  cerebral  correlates  of 
thought,  perceiving  the  cortical  process  whenever 
we  were  conscious  of  an  idea,  the  opposition  set 
up  between  the  mind  and  the  brain  would  never 
have  been  recognised .  The  two  processes,  cerebral 
and  ideational,  would  have  been  regarded  as 
essentially  the  same.  Thought,  we  then  might 
have  said,  is  a  mode  of  cerebral  change,  just  as  we 
now  say  that  heat  is  a  mode  of  motion.  But  there 
is  a  fallacy  in  any  such  identification  of  things 
different.  Association,  even  inseparable  associa- 
tion, is  not  identity.  We  may  allow  that  our 
sensations  have  unequal  value  as  indicia  of  the 
objects  which  we  project  or  construct  or  infer 
from  them ;  and  we  may  allow,  further,  that  the 
sensations  which  we  objectify  as  force  surpass  all 


others  in  objective  or  cognitive  significance.  But 
no  datum  of  knowledge  can  absorb  or  efface  all 
other  data.  In  the  synthesis  of  cognitive  elements 
which  constitutes  knowledge  every  element  has  its 
place  and  value,  and  must  contribute  of  its  quality, 
or  the  real  and  composite  object  of  knowledge 
tends  to  fade  into  a  dull  and  homogeneous  blank, 
as  unreal  as  any  of  the  abstractions  which  phi- 
losophers substitute  for  the  teeming  wealth  of 
actual  being. 

On  the  other  hand,  elemental  differences  of 
quality   are   consistent   with   systematic   unity. 
Body  and  mind,  neither  of  which  can  be  resolved 
into  the  other  and  each  of  which  includes  insolu- 
ble differences  in  itself,  are  both  included  in  the 
unity  of  the  person.    This  unity  we  constantly 
recognise;  in  volitional  movements,  for  instance, 
and  in  sensibility  to  the  hurts  or  the  health  of  the 
body.     In  practice  indeed  we  never  doubt  it. 
The  doubt  is  philosophical.    That   is   to    say, 
we  have  foimd  some  diffictilty,  following  a  false 
clue,   in  harmonising  our  conceptions  of  body 
and  mind  with  the  idea  of  such  unity.     We  have"^' 
confused  unity  with  identity,  and  when  this  con- 
fusion is  cleared  up  our  difficulty  is    removed. 
The  true  object  of  our  search  is  a  unity  in  diff erence,"j 
not  a  unity  which  abolishes  difference.    Thought  j 
and  cerebration,  great  as  is  the  breadth  of  their 
difference,  are  in  systematic  relation.      They  are 
conjoined  in  the  nature  of  the  psycho-physical 


i 


111 


i 


20     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

system,  which  like  all  real  being  involves  elements 
that  differ.  But  here  as  elsewhere  differing 
elements  may  subsist  in  systematic  union.  In- 
deed, to  abolish  difference  were  to  abolish  person- 
ality itself,  which  is  a  highly  complex  system  of 
differing  and  constantly  changing  elements.^ 

And  if  in  this  complex  system  a  certain  psychical 
event  systematically  precedes  a  certain  physical 
event  the  antecedent  may,  for  the  purpose  of  our 
inquiry  at  least,  be  called  the  cause.  In  practice 
no  error  results  if  I  say,  for  instance,  that  the  will 
to  walk  is  the  cause  of  my  walking.  I  may 
allow  that  the  merely  physical  act  had  its  proper 
antecedents  in  the  cerebral  or  neural  changes 
which  it  systematically  follows.  But  if  the  will 
to  walk  is  not  present  we  must  assume  that  the 
correlative  cerebral  state  is  not  present,  and  as 
we  cannot  directly  verify  the  presence  or  absence 
of  this  state  we  are  compelled  to  refer  to  the 
volitional  idea  as  its  sole  index.  The  volitional 
idea  thus  represents  the  physical  antecedent,  and 
may  in  practice  be  treated  as  itself  the  cause 
of  the  muscular  movements  which  constitute  the 
volitional  act. 

Inasmuch,  therefore,  as  ethics  is  a  practical 

»  L*tinit6  du  moi  n'est  done  celle  de  Tentit^  tine  des  spirit- 
ualistes  qui  s'^parpille  en  ph6nom^nes  multiples,  mais  la  co- 
ordination d'un  certain  nombre  d'^tats  sans  cesse  renaissants, 
ayant  pour  seul  point  d'appui  le  sentiment  vague  de  notre 
corps. — ^Th.  Ribot:  Les  Maladies  de  la  Personnalit^  in  fine. 


Systematic  Unity  of  Body  and  Mind     21 

science  we  may,  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  discus- 
sion, follow  the  common  usage  and  assume  without 
error  a  causal  influence  in  our  willing.     Whether 
a  true  conception  of  the  causal  relation  would 
allow  us  to  make  this  assumption  we  need  not 
stop  to  inquire.     The  practical  reason  is  our  suf- 
ficient justification.    The  truth  which  we  seek 
to  enforce  is  that  the  gap  which  has  been  dis- 
covered between  the  physical  and  the  psychical 
realms  is  not  so  deep  as  to  split  our  human  per- 
sonality or  the  all-inclusive  system  of  nature.     It 
is  simply  a  case  of  difference,  and  no  more  justifies 
the  dualism  of  our  philosophies  than  the  insolu- 
ble differences  in  perception  which  we  minimise 
or  ignore  would  justify  the  pluralism  of  a  rational- 
ising polytheist.    The  tmiverse,  like  its  microcosm 
man,   is  complex.    In  each  there  is  unity  m\ 
difference.     And  if  body  must  be  distinguished^ 
from  mind,  thought  from  the  brain,  with  no  hope 
of  cancelling  the  difference,  we  need  not  stumble 
at  the  distinction.     The  imity  which  philosophy  ^ 
may  legitimately  demand  is  not  the  unity  of  the 
merely  identical  or  homogeneous,  but  organic  or 
systematic  unity.    And  to  such  unity  difference  is 
essential. 


Organisms  and  Their  Ends        23 


1^ 


,■»* 


CHAPTER  III 

ORGANISMS  AND  THEIR  ENDS 

WITHIN  the  general  scheme  of  nature,  which 
we  have  described  as  an  organic  or  system- 
atic unity,  are  found,  as  we  have  noted,  systems 
which  are  organic  in  a  stricter  or  more  definite 
sense ;  and  it  is  to  one  or  another  of  these  stricter 
systems  that  we  usually  refer  when  we  speak  of 
an  organism.  But  a  definite  organism  implies 
a  more  or  less  definite  end.  This  end,  as  usually 
conceived,  is  the  conservation  of  the  organism 
in  the  discharge  of  its  functions,  and  includes,  as 
we  have  said,  the  propagation  of  the  species.^ 
How  the  play  of  instinct  and  the  impulsions 
of  appetite  result,  under  the  conditions  of  terres- 
trial life,  in  a  better  adaptation  of  the  species  to 
maintain  itself  in  the  struggle  for  life  we  have 

»  Chaque  616ment  anatomique,  chaque  tissu,  chaque  or- 
gane  n'a  qu'un  but,  exercer  son  activity,  et  I'individu 
physiologique  n'est  pas  autre  chose  que  I'expression  conver- 
gente  de  toutes  ces  tendances.  .  .  .  Tous  ces  besoins  ont  un 
point  de  convergence:  la  conservation  de  I'individu,  et, 
pour  employer  I'expression  courante,  nous  trouvons  en  eux 
i' instinct  de  la  conservation  en  exercice. — Th.  Ribot:  Psy- 
chologie  des  Sentiments,  p.  lo-ii  (Introduction). 

92 


not  taken  time  to  consider.  Darwin  has  made 
this  matter  of  common  knowledge.  1  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  the  double  aim,  the  conservation 
of  the  individtial  and  the  propagation  of  the 
species,  is  characteristic  of  vital  systems  generally 
whether  in  the  plant  or  in  the  animal  world. 

But  with  the  appearance  of  consciousness  and 
of  such  nervous  structures  as  the  presence  of 
consciousness  implies  the  functions  of  the  organism 
are  directed  towards  an  end  of  a  different  kind. 
This  new  end,  which  may  be  distinguished  as  the 
conscious  end,  is  not  directly  and  primarily  the 
conservation  of  the  organism  at  all :  it  is  to  do  the 
thing  by  which  the  individual  may  avoid  or  miti- 
gate pain,  or  the  thing  which  shall  tend  to  the  satis- 
faction of  some  positive  impulsion  varying  with  the 
nature  of  the  organism.  And  this  conscious  aim 
appears  in  the  activities  of  an  organism  in  which 
assimilative  and  other  physiological  functions  are 
at  the  same  time  directed  to  the  achievement  of 
the  organic  or  imconscious  end,  the  preservation 
of  the  physical  system. 

»  These  elaborately  constituted  forms  .  .  .  have  all  been 
produced  by  laws  acting  around  us.  These  laws,  taken  in 
their  largest  sense,  being  Growth  with  Reproduction;  Inherit- 
ance, which  is  almost  implied  by  Reproduction;  Variability, 
from  the  indirect  and  direct  action  of  the  conditions  of  life, 
and  from  use  and  disuse :  a  Ratio  of  Increase  so  high  as  to 
lead  to  a  Struggle  for  Life,  and  as  a  consequence  to  Natural 
Selection,  entailing  Divergence  of  Character  and  the  Extinction 
of  less  improved  forms. — Darwin:  Origin  of  Species,  chap. 
XV  (conclusion). 


^ 


24     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

But  though  we  have  distinguished  the  conscious 
end  from  the  organic  or  unconscious  end,  we 
need  not  assume  that  the  two  are  unrelated.    The 
relation  between  them  indeed  appears  to  be  both 
intimate  and  profound.    The  gratification  of  ap- 
petite, for  instance,  tends  on  the  whole  to  the 
nutrition  and  development  of  the  body.    Appetite 
in  fact  is  so  closely  related  to  the  physical  demand 
that  it  is  often  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  a  merely 
physical    impulsion.     And    we    may    say    that 
conscious  effort  tends  generally,  in  its  search  for 
satisfaction,  to  promote  the  characteristic  activity 
of  the  organs  employed,  and  thus  inures  to  the 
welfare  of  the  system.    The  particular  satisfaction , 
it  is  true,  may  sometimes  be  noxious  in  its  general 
effect.    A  cow  will  eat  clover  until  she  sickens 
or  dies,  and  even  men  will  break  down  their  health 
in  the  indulgence  of  appetite.     But  the  same 
selective  influences,  under  which  the  functions  of 
each  vegetal  structure  are  turned  to  the  advantage 
of  the  plant  as  a  whole,  have  in  the  animal  shaped 
desire  so  that  its  gratification  tends  to  the  good 
of  the  animal  as  a  whole.    Consciousness,  at  least 
in  its  earlier  stages,  is  little  more  than  an  added 
means  of  promoting  the  imconscious  end— that  is, 
of  preserving  the  organism  in  the  full  vigour  of 
its  corporeal  life. 

The  fuller  development,  however,  which  con- 
sciousness implies  may  change  the  whole  habit 
of  the  system.     The  conscious  end,  the  satisfac- 


Organisms  and  Their  Ends         25 

tion  of  appetite  and  other  conscious  impulsions, 
is  not  absolutely  merged  in  the  physical  end,  the 
discharge  of  the  physical  functions.  Conscious- 
ness, even  of  the  primitive  kind,  imports  some 
addition  to  the  ftmctions  and  therefore  to  the  end 
of  the  organism,  which  tends  to  discharge  all  its 
functions,  including  the  psychic.  In  its  degree 
consciousness,  with  the  neural  development  which 
it  implies,  always  modifies  the  organic  end. 
Starting  in  an  organism  relatively  complex,  it 
becomes  the  occasion,  imder  stress  of  some 
necessity  which  strains  the  resources  of  the 
system,  of  a  development  still  more  complex,  a 
development  to  which,  in  the  plastic  constitution 
of  man  for  instance,  we  can  assign  no  definite 
bounds.^  Consciousness,  with  its  physical  sub- 
stratum, is  in  fact  an  indispensable  condition 
of  the  evolution  of  life  in  all  its  advanced  forms. 
Without  it  the  development  of  organised  nature 
would  have  been  arrested  in  its  initial  stages: 
the  vegetal  structure  would  have  been  the  acme 
of  the  organic  series. 

>  We  may  admit,  at  all  events  provisionally,  that  the  laws 
of  variation  and  natural  selection,  acting  through  the  struggle 
for  existence  and  the  continual  need  of  more  perfect  adapta- 
tion to  the  physical  and  biological  environments,  may  have 
brought  about,  first,  that  perfection  of  bodily  structure  in 
which  he  [man]  is  so  far  above  all  other  animals,  and  in 
co-ordination  with  it  the  larger  and  more  developed  brain,  by 
means  of  which  he  has  been  able  to  utilise  that  structure- 
Alfred  Russell  Wallace :   Darwinism,  chap.  xv. 


a6     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Organisms  and  Their  Ends        27 


But  the  complexity  and  intricacy  of  the  conscious 
organism  demand  nice  adjustment  to  external 
conditions,  and  therefore  any  given  adjustment 
is  in  such  an  organism  more  or  less  imstable. 
Changes  in  these  conditions  may  disturb  adapta- 
tions which  it  has  cost  generations  of  experience  to 
establish.  Under  altered  surroundings  the  effect 
of  which  the  individual  has  not  intelligence  enough 
to  grasp,  tastes,  instincts,  or  habits  which  had 
once  served  to  protect  may  lead  to  pain,  injury, 
or  death.  The  conscious  aim  may  thus  frustrate 
the  unconscious  aim  and  emerge  as  distinct  through 
the  fact  of  such  opposition.  Or  the  two  aims 
may  diverge  through  the  sheer  force  of  the  con- 
scious impulse  itself  seeking  its  own  satisfaction. 
The  brute  mother  will  sacrifice  her  life  at  the 
prompting  of  maternal  feeling,  and  safety  is  dis- 
regarded, at  every  stage  of  psychic  development, 
in  the  ardour  of  conflict.  But  such  cases  may  be 
regarded  perhaps  as  merely  occasional  or  excep- 
tional. Maternal  and  combatant  feeling  no  doubt 
represent  in  the  main  conscious  aims  made  sub- 
ordinate, in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  survival, 
to  the  general  aim  of  each  vital  system  to  con- 
serve the  individual  and  perpetuate  the  species. 
But  the  exceptional  cases  emphasise  the  fact 
that  the  conscious  aim,  though  for  the  most 
part  coincident  with  this  general  organic  aim,  is 
not  to  be  confounded  with  it.  Consciousness 
has  an   end   of   its   own.     It  pursues    its    own 


satisfaction,   even  at  the  expense   of   the  vital 
system. 

And  the  importance  of  consciousness  increases 
with  the  development  of  the  system.  Both  inter- 
nal impulse  and  external  pressure,  in  the  case  of  an 
organism  capable  of  growth,  favour  the  expansion 
of  the  conscious  life;  and  by  degrees  the  central 
aim  of  the  system,  which  lies  primarily  well  within 
the  domain  of  physical  fimction,  shifts  towards 
the  psychic  domain.  That  is  to  say,  distinctively 
conscious  ends  are  more  and  more  completely 
emancipated  from  the  service  of  the  body  and 
become  ends  in  themselves.  Acts  are  performed 
and  habits  are  acquired,  by  ourselves  for  instance, 
purely  for  the  interest  they  excite  in  us.  We  do 
things  physically  indifferent  because  we  like 
to  do  them.  The  physical  tendencies  of  course 
still  survive,  but  the  body,  when  consciousness 
is  highly  developed,  is  consciously  nurtured  and 
protected,  not  for  the  body's  sake,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  conscious  functions  of  which  the  bodily 
life  is  the  condition. 

But  the  organisation  of  the  psychical  life, 
even  in  man,  is  incomplete.  We  know  only  a 
little  more  of  the  general  trend  of  our  conscious 
activities  than  the  bird  knows  of  the  meaning  of 
its  nest  or  of  its  migrations.  Keenly  conscious 
of  the  immediate  objects  of  desire,  and  eager  to 
grasp  them,  we  shape  our  desires  with  scant  insight 
into  their  bearings  on  each  other  or  on  any  com- 


«i 


28     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

prehensive  end.  Our  consciousness  is  thus,  rela- 
tively  speaking,  only  a  little  more  intelligent  than 
animal  instinct.  It  is  occupied  in  the  pursuit  of 
jarring  and  proximate  ends,  and  such  unity  of  aim 
as  appears  in  the  issue  is  due  rather  to  the  consti- 
tutional trend  of  the  system  and  the  pressure  of 
the  social  environment  than  to  the  effect  of  self- 
conscious  direction.  Of  the  cause,  however,  we 
might  scarcely  complain  were  but  a  reasonable 
unity  assured.  But  there  is  little  appearance 
of  such  unity,  either  constitutional  or  acquired, 
in  the  general  trend  of  our  conscious  acts.  The 
physical  functions  are  fairly  organised  in  the 
interest  of  the  corporeal  life.  But  the  psychic  or 
conscious  life  is  erratic,  inconsequent,  discordant. 
Its  organisation  is  yet  to  be  achieved. 

The  fundamental  inquiry,  then,  in  respect  of  the 
conscious  conduct  of  life  is  for  some  governing 
principle  which  shall  unify  our  aims.  Discord 
implies  impotence  in  the  pursuit  of  any  end,  and, 
as  the  essence  of  the  conscious  life  is  to  act  for  ends  \ 
a  life  at  issue  with  itself  must  defeat  itself.  It 
is  conceivable,  however,  that  there  may  be  differ- 
ent types  of  tmity ,  governed  by  different  principles 
of  conduct,  each  effective  in  its  way.  Experience 
in  fact  offers  us  diversity  of  type.  Is  there  a 
normal  type?  If  so,  what  is  the  norm,  and  how 
is  it  determined?  In  other  words,  what  is  the 
standard  by  which  we  may  estimate  the  worth  of 
our  acts,  and  by  reference  to  which  a  choice  may 


Organisms  and  Their  Ends         29 

be  made  as  among  various  conceivable  types? 
What,  in  fine,  is  the  true  principle  of  conscious 
choice  ? 

Assuming  that  a  **true"  principle  of  choice    j 
is  one  which  must  be  based  on  the  principles  of   j 
human  nature,  we  cannot  answer  this  question 
until  we  shall  have  examined   the  grounds  of 
choice,  or  the  influences  which  in  a  conscious  being 
like  man  determine  the  direction  of  the  will.  / 


28     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Organisms  and  Their  Ends         29 


I 


prehensive  end.  Our  consciousness  is  thus,  rela- 
tively speaking,  only  a  little  more  intelligent  than 
animal  instinct.  It  is  occupied  in  the  pursuit  of 
jarring  and  proximate  ends,  and  such  unity  of  aim 
as  appears  in  the  issue  is  due  rather  to  the  consti- 
tutional trend  of  the  system  and  the  pressure  of 
the  social  environment  than  to  the  effect  of  self- 
conscious  direction.  Of  the  cause,  however,  we 
might  scarcely  complain  were  but  a  reasonable 
unity  assured.  But  there  is  Httle  appearance 
of  such  imity,  either  constitutional  or  acquired, 
in  the  general  trend  of  our  conscious  acts.  The 
physical  fimctions  are  fairly  organised  in  the 
interest  of  the  corporeal  life.  But  the  psychic  or 
conscious  life  is  erratic,  inconsequent,  discordant. 
Its  organisation  is  yet  to  be  achieved. 

The  fundamental  inquiry,  then,  in  respect  of  the 
conscious  conduct  of  life  is  for  some  governing 
principle  which  shall  imify  our  aims.  Discord 
implies  impotence  in  the  pursuit  of  any  end,  and, 
as  the  essence  of  the  conscious  life  is  to  act  for  ends] 
a  life  at  issue  with  itself  must  defeat  itself.  It 
is  conceivable,  however,  that  there  may  be  differ- 
ent types  of  imity ,  governed  by  different  principles 
of  conduct,  each  effective  in  its  way.  Experience 
in  fact  offers  us  diversity  of  type.  Is  there  a 
r normal  type?  If  so,  what  is  the  norm,  and  how 
is  it  determined?  In  other  words,  what  is  the 
standard  by  which  we  may  estimate  the  worth  of 
our  acts,  and  by  reference  to  which  a  choice  may 


be  made  as  among  various  conceivable  types? 
What,  in  fine,  is  the  true  principle  of  consdoui 
choice  ? 

Assuming  that  a  "true"  principle  of  choice 
is  one  which  must  be  based  on  the  principles  of 
htunan  nature,  we  cannot  answer  this  question 
imtil  we  shall  have  examined  the  groimds  of 
choice,  or  the  influences  which  in  a  conscious  being 
like  man  determine  the  direction  of  the  will. 


ii-  - 


miWbifc 


SECTION  II 
Basis  and  Form  of  Volitional  Choice 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  CONSCIOUS  CHOICE  OF  ENDS  AND  ITS  RELATION 

TO  PLEASURE  AND  PAIN 

IT  seems  indisputable  that  the  ultimate  reference 
in  conscious  choice  must  be  to  some  afiEection 
of  the  ego  contemplating  or  pursuing  or  achieving 
its  ends.  In  other  words  conscious  choice,  as 
such,  must  be  determined  on  groimds  which  we 
consciously  appreciate.  There  must  be  presented 
to  the  mind  a  percept  or  idea  of  that  which  we 
choose  to  have  or  to  do,  and  of  the  qualities  or 
circumstances  which  commend  it  to  our  preference. 
The  basis  of  such  choice  is  not  far  to  seek. 
The  ego  is  not  indifferent  to  the  variations  in  its 
states,  but  notes  each  new  phase  of  experience 
with  characteristic  comment.  It  is  conscious, 
upon  the  discharge  of  any  function,  that  is,  upon 
presentation  in  consciousness  of  any  object  or 
idea,  or  upon  the  execution  of  any  act,  of  a  cer- 
tain response,  which  is  the  specific  reaction  of  the 

30 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends 


31 


psycho-physical  organism  as  a  whole  to  the 
occurrence  of  this  experience.  And  this  response, 
determined  in  the  depths  of  the  organism,  is  in 
consciousness  attested  by  a  peculiar  affection  or 
feeling. 

Such  feeling  presents,  in  correspondence  with 
the  formof  the  action, a  double  aspect.  It  appears, 
on  the  one  side,  in  that  sense  of  satisfaction  or 
pleasure  which  regularly  accompanies  the  free 
discharge  of  a  function  in  its  characteristic  mode.* 
It  is  felt,  on  the  other  side,  as  the  sense  of  pain  or 
dissatisfaction  or  displeasure  which  arises  upon 
obstruction  of  this  free  functional  action,  and 
which  commonly  reaches  its  acutest  form,  when 
the  obstruction  imports  injury  to  the  structures 
concerned. 

The  terms  ** satisfaction"  and  ** pleasure*'  are 
here  used,  it  will  be  observed,  as  if  they  were  inter- 
changeable, and  we  may  be  reminded  that  in 
ethical  speculation  they  have  been  distinguished. 
The  distinction  is  not  without  warrant  in  common 
usage.  When  the  function  on  which  feeling 
attends  is  sensory,  the  feeling  is  commonly  called 

>  The  organ  of  sight,  like  every  other,  requires  activity, 
and  its  natural  normal  functioning  is  accompanied  by  pleasure, 
as  appears  to  be  the  case  with  all  normal  functioning. — H. 
Hoffding:  Outlines  of  Psychology^  vi.,  A,  3,  e  (Lowndes's  tr.). 

Pleasure  is  seen  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  feeling  of  the 
performance  of  function,  or  the  free  discharge  of  vital  energy. 
— Henry  Sturt:  Self -realisation;  Intern,  Journ,  of  Ethics,  April, 
1898. 


32     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

pleasure.    The  subject  is  in  such  case  assumed 
to  be  passive,  the  activity  of  the  organs  of  sensation 
being  usually  ignored.     It  is  in  this  passive  sense 
that  we  speak  of  the  pleasure  which  we  derive 
from  the  beauty  of  a  flower,  the  sweetness  of  an 
orange,    or    the   strains    of   a    melody.     When, 
however,  the  conscious  subject  is  obviously  active 
and   effort  is  directed   to  the  accomplishment 
of  a  purpose,  the  resultant  pleasurable  feeling  is 
more  commonly   called   satisfaction.    And   this 
pleasurable  feeling  so  regularly  follows  achieve- 
ment that  the  consciousness  of  achievement  is, 
without  analytical   recognition  of   the  pleasure 
it  implies,  itself  called  satisfaction.     Even  sen- 
suous pleasure  is  called  satisfaction  when  it  follows 
the  attainment  of  an  object  of  craving  or  desire. 
A  starving  man  craves  food  and  with  food  he  is 
satisfied. 

As  contrasted  with  the  satisfaction  which  we 
take  in  a  task  well  accomplished,  pleasure  is 
sometimes  restricted,  again,  to  the  feeling  with 
which  we  engage  in  the  spontaneous  activities 
which  we  call  play.  The  pleasure-seeker  is,  in 
this  view,  a  mere  idler  bent  on  relaxation  or 
amusement ;  or  he  is  a  trifler,  incapable  of  laborious 
effort,  who  in  his  pursuit  of  frivolous  pleasure 
neglects  his  duty.  Pleasure  is  thus  discredited 
in  advance  as  a  principle  fitted  to  control  the 
more  serious  occupations  of  life.  The  writer, 
therefore,  who  for  want  of  an  unequivocal  term 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends 


33 


makes  use  of  the  word  "pleasure"  in  its  most  gen- 
eral sense,  is  at  a  certain  disadvantage.  He  seems 
to  be  reverting  to  a  principle  subversive  of 
morality,  and  to  represent  the  moral  subject  as 
shrinking  from  toil  and  danger  and  pain,  or  lap- 
ping himself  only  in  sensuous  sweets. 

But  some  comprehensive  term — ** happiness" 
or'*  blessedness  "or  **  satisfaction"  or ''pleasure" 
—is  a  necessity  of  ethical  thought.  If  we  follow 
the  lead  of  the  psychologist,  ** pleasure"  seems  to 
be  the  most  available  term.^  It  would  appear 
that  the  systematic  treatment  of  conduct  requires 
that  all  phases  of  the  feeling  which  arises  upon  the 
free  and  characteristic  discharge  of  a  function 
should  be  classed  together.  And  we  must  find 
some  designation  for  the  class.  The  psychologist 
groups  all  phases  of  such  feeling,  irrespective 
of  its  functional  origin,  imder  the  general  name 
of  pleasurable  feeling.  The  sources  of  this  feeling 
are  various.  Pleasure  may  be  of  the  eye  or  the  ear 
or  the  palate,  or  of  any  sense.  There  are  the 
pleasures  also  of  action,  of  imagination,  of  senti- 
ment. And,  save  perhaps  in  hortatory  discourse, 
there  is  no  more  reason  for  taking  the  satisfactions 
of  sympathy  or  of  a  good  conscience  out  of  the 

»  A  pleasure  is  any  degree  of  agreeable  consciousness  which 
as  such  contents  us,  and  is  voluntarily  held  to;  a  pain,  any 
degree  of  disagreeable  consciousness  which  as  such  discontents 
tis,  and  is  voltintarily  repelled.—James  Sully:  The  Human 
Mind,  part  iv..  chap,  xiii.,  sec.  2.  All  feeling  thus  seems  re- 
ducible to  pleasure  and  pain. — lb.,  sec.  3. 


34     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

general  class  of  pleasures,  because  of  the  specific 
character  of  the  generating  function,  than  there 
is  for  isolating  the  several  pleasures  of  eye  or  ear  or 
palate  because  the  respective  sensory  functions 
are  distinct. 

But  feeling,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  never 
found  **pure/*i  Pure  feeling  is  an  abstraction 
formed  for  the  purposes  of  science;  as  a  fact  of 
experience  feeling  is  continuous  with  the  ftmctional 
act  upon  which  it  arises.  Hence  the  variance 
which  we  find  in  the  psychological  treatment  of 
feeling,  which  is  by  some  regarded  as  a  mere 
quality  or  tone  of  sensation,  2  and  is  by  others  set 
off  as  a  relatively  independent  state.  ^  But  for  our 
purpose  this  variance  is  unimportant.  Feeling 
is  at  least  in  intimate  relation  with  the  sensation 
or  functional  act  to  which  it  is  referred,  and 
is  incorporated  with  it    in    one   concrete,  con- 

>  We  cannot  have  a  pure  feeling,  i.e.^  pleasure  and  pain 
without  qualities.  Feeling  in  this  sense  is  nothing  which 
constitutes  a  separate  object  by  itself. — B.  Bosanquet: 
Psychology  of  the  Moral  Self,  p.  31.     (London,  1897.) 

*  We  distinguish  three  properties  in  each  sensation:  quality, 
intensity,  and  accompanying  tone  of  feeling. — Th.  Ziehen; 
Intr.  to  Phys.  Psychology,  chap,  vii.,  p.  130  (tr.  of  Van  Liew 
and  Beyer). 

»  There  remains  only  the  last  of  the  three  possible  views 
of  the  relation  of  feeling  to  sensation,  that  which  makes  feeling 
an  independent  conscious  process.  .  .  .  We  will  therefore 
interpret  it  as  a  correct  interpretation  of  the  facts,  without 
intending  for  a  moment  to  deny  the  normal  connection  of 
feeling  with  sensation  in  consciousness. — Oswald  Ktilpe: 
Outlines  of  Psychology,  sec.  34  (Titchener's  tr.). 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends 


35 


tinuous  state  from  which  it  is  separated  only  by 
abstraction. 

This  concrete  state  has  other  aspects  also,  that 
is  to  say,  it  embodies  other  elements  which  by 
abstraction  are  distinguished  from  both  sensation 
and  feeling.  As  registering  the  welcome  or  recoil 
of  the  psycho-physical  organism,  it  includes  in 
implicit  form  terms  of  approval  or  disapproval, 
a  psychological  datum  which  may  be  tracai  even 
in  the  highly  complex  judgments  of  morals. * 
Again,  bound  up  with  this  welcome  or  recoil  with 
which  feeling  is  associated,  we  find  movements, 
expressive,  instinctive,  or  volitional,  apart  from 
which  feeling  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist.  Such 
movements,  it  is  true,  may  be  merely  inchoate, 
like  those  of  subdued  speech  in  reading  to  one's 
self,  or  they  may  be  so  far  restrained  that  an 
observer  may  be  unaware  of  the  quality  or  even 
of  the  presence  of  the  underlying  feeling.  If, 
however,  this  emotional  activity  is  allowed  free 
play,  it  takes  a  direction  in  reference  to  its  object 

>  The  peculiar  ethical  emotions,  the  feelings  which  find 
expression  in  all  our  moral  judgments  of  men  and  events, 
are  the  feelings  of  approval  and  disapproval;  the  character- 
istically ethical  attitudes  towards  things  are  those  of  praise 
and  blame. — Alfred  Edward  Taylor:  The  Problem  of  Conduct, 
p.  104.     (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1901.) 

I  hope  it  will  be  plain  that  I  have  insisted  on  the  necessity 
of  recognising  the  distinctively  moral  sanction  of  self-appro- 
bation and  self-disapprobation,  a  recognition  which,  in  my 
view,  is  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  Ethics. — Fowler 
and  Wilson:  Prin.  of  Morals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  272. 


36     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


which  diflEers  according  as  the  reaction  is  pleasur- 
able on  the  one  hand  or  painfiil  on  the  other. 
The  pleasure-producing  object  we  seek,  the  pain- 
producing  object  we  shun. 

We  thus  arrive  at  what  may  be  called  the 
elementary  act  of  choice.  Embodied  in  the 
original  affectional  state  engendered  by  sensation, 
perception,  ideation,  or  other  fimctional  act, 
and  continuous  with  this  act,  we  find  an  incipient 
judgment  of  approval  or  disapproval,  and  incipient 
acts  of  pursuit  or  avoidance  following  the  sense  of 
the  judgment.  In  this  pursuit  or  avoidance 
choice  is  involved.  Choice  is  implicate  in  the 
very  existence  and  expression  of  feeling,  and  it  be- 
comes conscious  choice  when  the  subject,  in  the 
expression  or  on  the  suggestion  of  feeling,  follows 
the  lead  of  a  volitional  idea.^ 

And  beyond  this  affectional  state,  thus  generated 
by  the  play  of  function  and  determined  in  sense 
and  effect  as  the  function  is  obstructed  or  freely 
discharged,  we  find  no  element  in  consciousness 
on  which  to  found  a  principle  of  conscious  choice. 

»  Au  point  de  vue  psychologique,  ce  qui  constitue  la  con- 
science, selons  nous,  c'est  un  processus  k  trois  termes  in- 
separables: 1°  un  discernement  quelconque,  qui  fait  que 
retre  sent  ses  changements  d'etat  et  qui  est  ainsi  le  germe 
de  la  sensation  et  de  I'intelligence;  2®  un  bien-itre  ou  malaise 
quelconque,  aussi  sourd  qu'on  voudra,  mais  qui  fait  que 
r^tre  n'estpas  indifferent  k  son  chaingement;  3®  une  reaction 
quelconque,  qui  est  le  germe  de  la  pr6f6rence  et  du  choix, 
c'est-^-dire,  de  Tapp^tition. — ^A.  Fouillde:  Revue  Philos- 
ophique,  Juin,  1892,  p.  578. 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends         37 

For  the  ground  of  choice  we  are  referred,  ulti- 
mately, to  the  pleasurable  or  painful  functional 
act. 

True,  the  activities  of  the  conscious  being  are 
by  no  means,  all  determined  with  explicit  and 
conscious  reference  to  this  principle.    The  scope 
of  conscious  action,  relatively  to  all  that  the 
organism  accomplishes,  is  in  any  case  narrow. 
Our  distinctively  conscious  life  rests  upon  a  basis 
of  habit,  instinct,  and  imconscious  activity,  and 
constitutes,  even  when  it  is  most  active  and  com- 
plete, but  a  transient  accompaniment  of  the  un- 
conscious processes  on  which  it    attends.    The 
body,  with  its  complex  apparatus  of  muscles  and 
nerves,  has  a  certain  initiative  of  its  own.    It  is 
not  a  machine  moving  simply  as  directed  by 
the  mind.     It  is  aUve ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  a  system 
of  organised  structures,  each  adapted  to  a  specific 
end  in  relation  to  the  general  end,  the  conservation 
of  the  system.    The  human  system  includes,  in 
short,  a  fimd  of  organised  energy  which  upon 
appropriate  stimulus  tends,  even  without  volitional 
direction,    to    characteristic    modes    of    action. 
Food  and  water  prompt  in  the  famished  man 
the  familiar  attitudes  of  hunger  and  thirst.    A 
timid  nature  shudders  and  an  aggressive  nature 
rises  at  the  mere  intimation  of  danger.    And 
every  man  has  his  bias,  his  habits  of  feeling  and 
action,  which  assert  themselves,  without  mediation 
of  the  will,  upon  any  suggestion  with  which  the 


38     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

activities  of  the  organism  are  in  train.  The 
organism  reacts  to  its  stimulus  in  a  sense  pre- 
determined by  the  form  of  the  organism.  ^ 

And  volitional  control  is  itself  nothing  more 
than  the  determination  through  the  volitional 
idea  of  the  initial  phase  of  this  systemic  activity. 
The  organic  apparatus  itself  does  the  rest.  That  is 
to  say,  volitional  activity  presupposes  and  depends 
upon  a  certain  pre-formed  character  in  the  organ- 
isation of  the  muscles  and  nerves,  and  the  volitional 
idea  is  in  such  relation,  through  its  cerebral 
concomitants,  with  the  motor  centres  which 
control  the  organism  that  it  initiates  the  move- 
ments which  result  in  the  execution  of  the  idea. 
Ideas  thus  become  springs  of  action.  But  the 
transition  from  the  idea  to  the  act  is  an  uncon- 
scious process,  though  a  succession  of  acts  may 
require  a  succession  of  ideas  for  their  due  control. 
And  the  so-called  ** force'*  of  the  idea  is  simply  its 
power,  through  its  neural  and  cerebral  substrates, 
to  start  this  unconscious  process,  which  thus 
serves,  as  it  were  in  the  dark,  to  execute  the 
idea  which  we  call  the  mandate  of  the  will. 2 

»  It  seems  probable  that  instinctive  movements  may  have 
their  source  ...  in  the  mesencephalon  (the  corpora  striata 
and  the  optic  thalami).  Volition  proper,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  linked  with  the  cerebrum.  Volition  proper  is  characterised 
psychologically  by  the  ideas  of  the  end  of  the  action  and 
the  means  to  its  realisation,  and  by  a  vivid  feeling  of  the 
worth  of  that  end.— H.  Hoffding:  Outlines  of  Psychology, 
chap,  vii.,  pp.  312-313  (Lowndes'  tr.). 

2  The  essential  achievement  of  the  will,  in  short,  when 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends 


39 


By  conscious  choice,  then,  we  mean  volitional 
choice,  and  in  our  study  of  the  law  of  conscious 
choice  our  inquiry  must  be  limited  to  the  field  of 
volitional  or  consciously  determined  action.    The 
principle  of  choice  must  be  charged  or  accredited 
with  that  alone  which  is  consciously  chosen.    And 
it  does  not  invalidate  our  principle  to  show  that, 
under  the  dominance  of  instincts  compelling  their 
own  gratification,  the  course  which  is  on  the  whole 
the  more  painful  or  the  less  pleasurable  is  often 
the  course  which  is  actually  pursued.    A  large 
part  of  human  conduct  is  determined  instinctively, 
that  is,  without  reference  to  other  feeling  than 
that  which  is  involved  in  the  gratification  of 
the  instinctive  impulse  itself.     In  such  case,  there 
is  no  comparison  and  evaluation  of  ends,  and 
therefore  no  explicit  or  conscious  choice.     But 
where  the  choice  is  consciously  made,  where  ends 
are  compared,  and  where  rival  claims  are  really 
measured  and  adjusted,  the  sole  principle  of  choice 
appears,  on  inspection,  to  be  that  which  deter- 
mines  us  to  take  the  more  pleasurable  or  the  less 
painful  course. 

This  is  the  principle  stated  in  its  simplest  terms. 
But  man  looks  before  and  after,  and  the  field 


It  IS  most  "voluntary,"  is  to  attend  to  a  difficult  object  and 
hold  it  fast  before  the  mind.  The  so  doing  is  the  fiat;  and  it 
IS  a  mere  physiological  incident  that  when  the  object  is  thus 
attended  to,  immediate  motor  consequences  shoiUd  ensue. 
—W.  James:  Psychology,  vol.  ii.,  p.  561. 


40     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


of  volition,  instead  of  being  limited  to  two  simple 
alternatives,  covers  the  whole  breadth  of  his  life. 
The  principle  has  therefore  to  be  rationalised 
or  generalised.  Any  proposed  end  has  to  be  com- 
pared with  many  possible  ends,  and  remote  as 
well  as  immediate  effects  have  to  be  taken  into 
consideration.  But  the  complexity  of  the  esti- 
mate does  not  change  the  psychological  basis  of 
value.  The  reasonable  choice  must  fall  on  the 
end  or  object  in  the  pursuit  of  which  the  man 
has  reason  to  believe,  all  things  considered, 
he  will  obtain  most  satisfaction.  Errors  of 
knowledge  or  of  judgment  may  vitiate  the  estimate, 
and  the  actual  choice  may  be  by  no  means  the 
reasonable  choice.  But  the  simple  case  discloses 
the  principle  of  choice,  and  the  principle  has 
only  to  be  consistently  applied  to  any  situation, 
however  complex,  to  make  the  choice  reasonable. 
Our  position,  then,  is  that  value  in  consciousness 
is  determined,  viltimately,  by  a  certain  affectional 
tone  or  element  in  the  perception  or  idea  or 
pursuit  of  some  end  or  object  with  which  the 
subject  may  be  brought  into  conscious  relation. 
And  the  affection  or  feeling  may  appear  in  either 
of  two  contrasted  phases.  The  one  phase  of 
feeling  is  that  in  virtue  of  which  we  find  the  things 
which  induce  it  gratifying,  satisfactory,  pleasant ; 
and  the  things  which,  as  pleasurable,  we  tend  to 
pursue  increase  in  value  with  the  increase  in  their 
power  to  satisfy  or  please.    The  other  phase  of 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends         41 


feeling  is  that  iji  virtue  of  which  we  find  its  in- 
ducing causes  disagreeable,  unsatisfactory,  im- 
pleasant,  painful;  and  those  causes  or  objects 
which,  considered  by  themselves,  we  seek  to  avoid 
fall  in  value  with  increase  of  the  pain  or  dissatis- 
faction or  displeasure  which  they  induce.  Feeling 
thus  affords  us  a  standard  of  value,  and  in  a  normal 
human  being  the  choice  falls,  at  least  in  simple 
cases,  on  the  end  or  object  which  appears  to  be  of 
most  value.  And  in  complex  cases  the  same 
principle  of  choice  is  that  which  consistency  would 
require  us  to  follow,  or,  in  view  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  nature,  the  rationalised  or  reasonable 
principle. 

In  looking  to  feeling  for  a  standard  of  values, 
however,  we  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  depend- 
ence of  feeling  on  function.  Instead  of  referring 
to  feeling  simply,  that  is,  to  pleasure  and  pain  in 
the  abstract,  we  might  more  properly  speak  of 
pleasurable  and  painful  fimctions,  bearing  in 
mind  that  functions  may  be  either  sensory  or 
motor,  perceptive  or  ideational.  In  this  view 
our  position  may  be  defined  in  slightly  different 
terms.  Pleasurable  and  painful  functions,  we 
may  say,  mark  at  their  respective  extremes  the 
positive  and  the  negative  limits  or  poles  of  choice. 
And  as  between  any  given  alternatives  within  these 
extremes,  the  choice  falls  on  the  pleasurable  rather 
than  on  the  painful  function,  on  the  more  pleasing 
rather  than  on  the  less  pleasing,  and  on  the  less 


42     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

painful  rather  than  on  the  more  painftil.  In  a 
word,  the  working  of  our  principle  carries  the 
choice  away  from  the  negative  limit  as  far  as 
possible  over  towards  the  positive  limit. 

Of  course  it  is  qualities  as  they  are  felt  or 
represented  in  the  appreciating  consciousness 
which  determine  the  actual  choice,  and  this 
choice  is,  for  the  reasons  stated,  subject  to  error. 
Whole  tracts  of  certain  or  possible  experience 
may  be  left  out  of  consideration.  The  choice 
may  lie,  too,  between  alternatives  in  both  of 
which  pleasures  are  mingled  with  pains.  Or  a  man 
may  be  required  to  determine  whether  present 
pleasures  shall  be  purchased  at  the  cost  of  future 
pains,  or  whether  he  will  submit  to  present  pain, 
such  as  the  fatigues  of  discipline,  for  the  sake 
of  permanently  enlarging  the  sources  of  pleasure. 
But  however  broad  the  field  of  choice,  however 
complex  the  ends  or  activities  to  be  valued, 
the  principle  of  choice  remains  the  same.  Con- 
scious or  volitional  choice,  as  distinguished  from 
instinctive  or  impulsive  determination,  is  governed 
by  the  subject's  estimate  of  the  functional  or  afifec- 
tional  worth  of  the  end  or  object  chosen.  And 
the  actual  choice  becomes  a  reasonable  choice  when 
the  estimate  may  in  reason  be  considered  just,  and 
the  choice  falls  on  the  end  or  object  of  most 
functional  or  affectional  value. 

But  the  relations  of  the  affective  state  to  the 
general  conscious  activity  of  the  subject  are  so 


Conscious  Choice  of  Ends         43 


intricate  that  the  workings  of  this  principle  are  not 
always  clear,  and  its  validity  is  disputed.  It  seems 
necessary,  therefore,  to  look  more  closely  into 
the  nature  of  these  relations. 


CHAPTER  V 


FUNCTIONAL  CONDITIONS  OP  PLEASURE  AND  PAIN 


ALL  pleasure,  we  have  found,  is  associated  with 
the  discharge  of  some  function.  Each  organ 
has  its  characteristic  structure  and  action,  and 
pleasure  is  the  indication  in  the  affectional  con- 
sciousness that  the  structures  implicated  in  any 
given  act  or  state  are  for  the  time  being  freely- 
discharging  their  office.  Pain,  on  the  other  hand, 
implies  either  injury  to  the  structure  or  a  certain 
obstruction  or  disturbance  of  function.^ 

»  La  douleur  est  li6e  k  la  diminution  ou  ^  la  disorganisation 
des  fonctions  vitales. — ^Th.  Ribot:  La  Psychologie  des  Senti- 
ments, p.  29.  .  .  .  Les  manifestations  de  la  joie  peuvent  se 
r^sumer  en  un  seul  mot:  djmamog^nie. — 76.,  p.  53. 

Pains  are  the  correlatives  of  actions  injurious  to  the  organ- 
ism, while  pleasures  are  the  correlatives  of  actions  conducive 
to  its  welfare. — H.  Spencer:  Prin.  of  Psychology,  vol.  i.,  p.  279. 
(Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1876). 

Notwithstanding  apparent  exceptions  the  great  principle 
may  be  established  that  pleasure  connects  itself  with  vital 
energy,  and  pain  with  the  opposite. — Bain:  Emotions  and 
Will,  I.,  9. 

As  a  general  rule  it  may  be  laid  down  that  pleasure  indicates 
increased  activity  of  life,  higher  and  freer  employment  of 
energy. — H  Off  ding:  Outlines  of  Psychology,  chap,  vi.,  p.  272. 
(Lowndes'  tr.) 

A  painful  sensation  is  a  physiological  discord  incompatible 

44 


Pleasure  and  Pain 


45 


This,  however,  is  but  a  general  statement  of  the 
physiological  conditions  of  feeling,  and  the  re- 
lations of  pleasure  and  pain  to  volitional  choice 
would  be  clearer  perhaps  if  we  could  state  these 
conditions  in  more  specific  form.  But  it  is  only 
in  the  most  general  way  that  the  physiology  of 
feeling  is  imderstood.  Feeling,  at  least  in  its 
non-sensuous  forms,  is  too  vague  and  elusive  to 
be  studied  as  we  study  a  muscle  or  a  nerve;  it 
tends  to  vanish  or  change  the  instant  it  is  brought 
under  scrutiny. 

But  feeling  as  allied  with  sensation  is  more 
accessible,  and  has  been  made  matter  of  much  ex- 
perimental inquiry,  especially  the  feeling  of  pain. 
Indeed  facts  are  cited  in  support  of  the  theory 
that  such  pain  is  mediated  by  special  nerve 
paths  or  apparatus,  and  constitutes,  in  fact, 
a  special  sense  comparable  with  the  sense  of 
temperature  or  of  contact.*  But  the  term  pain 
is  in  such  experimentation  taken  in  a  restricted 
sense.     It  denotes,  not  the  general  counterpart 


with  health  or  comfort,  or,  it  may  be,  with  life  itself.  A 
pleastirable  sensation  is  a  ph3rsiological  harmony  promoting 
health  and  comfort,  and  calculated  to  prolong  existence. 
— Ferrier;  Functions  of  the  Brain,  chap,  xii.,  sec.  5  (2d  ed.). 
«  On  the  other  hand  see  American  Journal  of  Physiology, 
p.  843:  The  evidence  of  physiological  experiment .  .  .  teaches 
that  this  sensation  [pain]  is  the  result  of  the  excessive  or 
unnattiral  stimulation  of  a  group  of  nerves  whose  function 
is  to  give  rise  to  what  is  indefinitely  called  "common  sen- 
sation.'! 


46     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

of  pleasure,  but  simply  that  form  cf  pain  which 
indicates  violence  or  injury  to  some  physical 
structure.  And  inasmuch  as  integrity  of  structure 
is  of  more  importance  to  the  system  than  any  mere 
disturbance  of  function,  we  need  not  be  surprised 
that  nature  should  in  some  way  insure  swift 
recoil  in  case  this  integrity  is  threatened.  This, 
however,  is  a  detail  which  it  is  beyond  our  purpose 
to  discuss.  It  is  mainly  the  non-sensuous  forms 
of  pain,  pains  of  the  mind  as  they  are  called,  which 
concern  us  here. 

Formulae  have  been  proposed  which  refer  the 
feeling  of  pleasure  or  of  pain  in  any  given  conscious 
content  to  the  nutritive  state  of  the  organs  in- 
volved, that  is,  to  the  quantum  of  energy  stored 
in  the  organs  relative  to  the  demands  which  they 
have  to  meet.^  And  there  is,  no  doubt,  good 
ground  in  experience  for  the  recognition  of  some 


>  Pleasure  is  experienced  whenever  the  physical  activity 
coincident  with  the  psychic  state  to  which  the  pleasure  is 
attached  involves  the  use  of  surplus  stored  force — the  resolu- 
tion of  surplus  potential  energy  into  actual  energy— or,  in 
other  words,  whenever  the  energy  involved  in  the  reaction 
to  the  stimulus  is  greater  in  amount  than  the  energy  which 
the  stimulus  habitually  calls  for.  Pain,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  experienced  whenever  the  physical  activity  coincident  with 
the  psychic  state  to  which  the  pain  is  attached  is  so  related 
to  the  supply  of  nutriment  to  its  organs  that  the  energy 
involved  in  the  reaction  to  the  stimulus  is  less  in  amount 
than  the  energy  which  the  stimulus  habitually  calls  for. 
— Henry  Rutgers  Marshall:   Pain,  Pleasure,  and  Esthetics, 

p.  221. 


Pleasure  and  Pain 


47 


more  or  less  constant  relation  between  the  re- 
pletion or  the  exhaustion  of  an  organ  and  the 
feeling  attendant  on  its  exercise.  The  freshness 
of  a  pleasure,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the 
subjective  index  of  abundant  energy  in  the  officiat- 
ing structures,  adds  to  the  pleasure.  Fatigue,  the 
psychical  index  of  physical  exhaustion,  is  pain. 
But  whatever  truth  may  be  embodied  in  the 
theory,  it  seems  clear  that  no  mere  ratio  between 
energy  stored  and  energy  expended  can  make 
up  the  full  accoimt  of  the  physical  substrates  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  Even  if  we  allow  that  quali- 
tative differences  in  the  form  of  the  function 
always  involve  questions  of  degree  or  of  quantita- 
tive change,  the  qualitative  difference  remains,' 
it  cannot  be  resolved  into  non-qualitative  ele- 
ments.^ And  the  qualitative  difference,  as  may 
appear  later,  has  often  controlling  significance. 
Some  investigation  has  been  made  of  the  changes 
in  blood  pressure,  circulation,  and  respiration 
which  occur  in  the  presence  of  feeling.     These 


>  Change  or  transition  from  one  mental  state  to  another  and 
dissimilar  state  is  a  condition  of  all  mental  wakefulness  and 
of  the  simplest  mode  of  intellectual  activity,  viz.,  the  con- 
sciousness of  difference. — ^James  Sully:  The  Human  Mind, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  31.     (N.  Y.,  1892.) 

Quantities  are  perceived  first,  I  presume,  not  as  being 
quantities  at  all,  but  as  differing  merely  in  quality.  They 
are  perceived  next  as  also  more  or  less  of  some  quality  or 
thing. — F.  H.  Bradley :  What  do  we  mean  by  the  Intensity 
of  Psychical  States  f  in  Mind,  January,  1895. 


48     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

changes,  generally  speaking,  are  such  as  indicate, 
in  the  case  of  pleasure,  acceleration  or  reinforce- 
ment of  the  vital  processes,  and  correspond,  no 
doubt,  to  that  vivifying  of  our  conscious  states 
which  is  generally  allowed  to  be  the  effect  or 
accompaniment  of  pleasure.  A  corresponding 
depression  or  enfeeblement  of  the  vital  processes 
accompanies  the  consciousness  of  pain.  The 
changes  in  circulation  and  respiration  are  in  all 
probability  merely  secondary  phenomena,  refer- 
able perhaps  to  some  central  state,  ^  though  they 
may,  as  in  themselves  pleasurable  or  painful, 
reinforce  the  primary  feeling. 
It  has  been  suggested,  further,  that  pleasure 


>  It  is,  therefore,  probable  that  in  the  case  of  feelings  and 
emotions,  we  have  chiefly  changes  in  inhibitory  innervation, 
originating  in  the  brain  and  conducted  along  the  vagus. 
It  may  well  be  assumed  that  the  affective  tone  of  sensation 
corresponds  on  its  physiological  side  to  a  spreading  of  the 
stimulation  from  the  sensory  centre  to  those  central  regions 
which  are  connected  with  the  sources  of  the  inhibitory  nerves 
of  the  heart.  What  central  regions  these  are  we  do  not  know. 
— W.  Wundt:  Outlines  of  Psychology,  ad  ed.,  p.  98  (Judd's 
tr.). 

Observations  upon  mania  (in  which  there  is  excess  of 
pleasure)  and  melancholia  (in  which  there  is  constant  tm- 
pleasantness)  point  to  the  fact  that  the  ultimate  physiological 
equivalent  of  a  pleasurable  state  is  the  increase  of  excitability 
following  from  a  dilatation  of  the  blood-vessels  which  supply 
the  brain,  while  the  ultimate  physiological  equivalent  of  an 
unpleasurable  state  is  the  lasting  diminution  of  excitability 
connected  with  the  constriction  of  the  central  vessels. — KUlpe : 
Outlines  of  Psychology,  sec.  37,  4  (Titchener's  tr.). 


Pleasure  and  Pain 


49 


is  connected  with  the  extension  and  unpleasant- 
ness with  the  contraction  of  the  muscles.  ^  But 
there  is  no  theory  touching  the  physiological  con- 
ditions or  accompaniments  of  feeling  which  com- 
mands general  acceptance.  2  We  must  content 
ourselves,  accordingly,  with  such  conditions  as  are 
accessible  to  common  observation  and  appear 
to  throw  light  on  the  practical  aspect  of  the  re- 
lation of  feeling  to  volitional  choice. 

For  convenience  of  treatment  we  may  dis- 

I  "The  reflexly  excited  extensions  and  flexions  are  the  con- 
dition of  those  conscious  processes  which  we  call  pleasure 
and  tmpleasantness." — Hugo  Miinsterberg:  Beitrdge  zur 
Exper.  Psychologies  Heft  4.  Cited  by  E.  B.  Titchener  in 
Mind,  April,  1893,  p.  240. 

A  later  expression  of  Mttnsterberg*s  view  appears  in  his 
Grundzuge  der  Psychologies  Band  i,  S.  293  (Leipzig,  1900) : 
*'Es  mag  sein,  dass  wirklich  alle  Lust  durch  eine  Tendenz  zu 
Streckbewegungen,  alle  Unlust  durch  eine  Tendenz  zu 
Beugebewegungen  charakterisiert  werden  kann,  imd  dass 
gleichzeitig  Assoziationen  sich  zugesellen,  welche  den 
Lust-  und  Unlustton  verstarken,  tmd  dennoch  ist  der  eigent- 
liche  Lust-  tmd  Unlustwert  noch  als  besondere  Nuance  des 
Bewusstseinsinhaltes  in  dem  gef allenden  oder  nicht  gef  allenden 
Objekt  enthalten." 

*  Les  conditions  anatomiques  et  physiologiques  de  la 
gendse  et  de  la  transmission  du  plaisir  sont  une  terre  inconnue. 
Th.  Ribot:  Psychologie  des  Sentiments ,  chap,  iii.,  p.  50. 

For  a  r6sum6  of  the  literature  on  this  subject  see  Ladd's 
Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology,  part  ii.,  chap,  ix.,  sec.  12 
et  seq.     Ladd  summarises  as  follows; 

"We  are  compelled  then  to  confess  that  the  localising  of 
the  nervous  apparatus,  and  the  nature  of  the  physiological 
processes  which  form  the  physical  basis  of  painful  and  pleas- 
urable feeling,  reqmre  f\irther  investigation**  (p.  512.) 


50     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

tinguish  the  conditions  of  pleasurable  feeling  as 
they  may  be  traced, 

(i)  to  the  state  of  the  organism  as  a  whole; 

(2)  to  the  state  of  the  specific  organs  or  struc- 
tures which  are  in  any  given  case  called  into 

activity; 

(3)  to  the  energy  or  intensity  of  this  activity; 

(4)  to  the  form  or  mode  or  such  activity ;  and 

(5)  to  the  relational  character  or  stimulative 
efEect  of  the  original  fimctional  act  which  with 
its  derivative  activities  forms  a  pleasurable  whole. 

(i)  To  the  consideration  of  the  general  organic 
conditions  we  need  not  give  much  time.  We 
know  from  common  experience  that  no  pleasure 
can  be  felt  in  full  measure  unless  the  physical 
system  as  a  whole  be  at  the  top  of  its  condition. 
Exhaustion,  or  lack  of  nutrition,  or  any  morbid 
process  which  lowers  the  nervous  tone,  lowers 
the  affectional  tone,  and  in  some  degree  vitiates 
the  satisfaction  which  we  feel  in  the  discharge  of 
any  particular  function. 

(2)  And  the  importance  of  physical  conditions 
is  equally  clear  when  we  consider  the  case  of  any 
particular  organ  which  is  in  any  given  instance 
brought  into  play.  Eye  or  ear,  muscle  or  limb, 
caimot  discharge  its  function  freely  and  effectively 
in  its  characteristic  mode  unless  it  be  well  trained, 
in  good  exercise,  and  sound.  In  other  words,  the 
structure,  considered  as  an  instrument,  must  be 
an  efficient  instrument.     The  term  ** structure'* 


Pleasure  and  Pain 


51 


is  not  used  here,  of  course,  in  any  rigorous  ana- 
tomical sense.  It  implies  any  organ  or  group  of 
organs,  however  complex,  employed  in  the  dis- 
charge of  a  particular  office ;  and  it  is  a  common- 
place of  observation  that  the  organ  must  be  in  a 
condition  to  do  its  work  well  in  order  that  we 
may  take  all  the  pleasure  possible  in  doing  the 
work. 

(3)  The  intensity  of  the  pleasurable  feeling 
depends,  in  part  at  least  and  within  certain 
limits,  upon  the  intensity  of  the  functional  action. 
There  is  always  in  feeling  a  question  of  degree. 
Pain,  we  know,  may  be  felt  as  a  just  perceptible 
annoyance,  or  it  may  be  so  severe  as  to  destroy 
self-control ;  and  it  increases,  within  certain  limits, 
with  increase  in  the  disturbance  of  the  function. 
Pleasure  too  has  a  wide  range,  varying  between  the 
faintest  affectional  tone  distinguishable  from  in- 
difference and  that  ecstatic  state  which  absorbs 
all  consciousness  in  a  tumult  of  joy.  And  such 
difference  depends,  in  part,  upon  the  difference  in 
the  intensity  of  the  ftmctional  activity.  It 
does  not  depend,  of  course,  upon  the  energy 
of  such  movements  alone  as  are  apparent  to  the 
observer.  We  know  that  a  train  of  nervous 
or  emotional  reactions  of  exhausting  intensity  may 
occur  in  a  system  which  is  to  all  appearance  quies- 
cent. It  remains  true,  however,  that  a  feeble 
functional  action  is  likely  to  provoke,  directly 
at  least,  but  a  feeble  organic  reaction  as  the  basis 


52     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

of  feeling,  and  to  incite  therefore  but  a  feeble 
consciousness,  relatively  speaking,  of  either  pleas- 
ure or  pain. 

(4)  It  appears  that  the  mode  in  which  a 
function  is  discharged  has  an  influence  on  the 
quality  and  value  of  the  feeling  no  less  significant 
than  that  which  is  exerted  by  the  mere  energy  or 
intensity  of  the  discharge.  This  is  a  phase  of  the 
question,  however,  which  has  been  but  little 
studied.  Some  light  may  be  thrown  upon  it, 
perhaps,  by  reference  to  sensory  stimuli,  that  is, 
to  the  objects  or  qualities  which  excite  an  organ 
of  sense  to  pleasurable  or  painful  activity. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  field  of  audition.  The 
musical  character  of  a  tone,  or  that  which  renders 
it  pleasurable  as  mere  sound  independently  of  all 
association  or  ulterior  use,  depends  upon  its 
•  *  purity."  Such  purity  we  refer  to  the  regularity 
of  the  aerial  vibrations  which  are  the  kinetic  con- 
comitants of  sotindi  and  the  regularity  of  the 
aerial  movements,  as  we  may  fairly  infer  from 
a  study  of  the  internal  ear,  is  reproduced  in  the 
mechanical  processes  incident  to  audition,  that 
is,  in  the  manner  in  which  the  organ  of  hearing 
discharges  its  function.  And  when  tones  are 
combined  the  resultant  tone  is  pleasing  or  musical 
only  when  the  vibrations  are  compovmded  in 
certain  simple  ratios. 

A  corresponding  account  may  be  given  of  the 
pleasure    which    we    derive  from  colour.    Such 


Pleasure  and  Pain 


S3 


colours  or  combinations  of  colour  are  pleasing  or 
beautiful  as  affect  the  visual  organs  in  a  peculiar 
mode,   depending,  say,  upon  the   **  purity '*   or 
''harmony'*  of  the  colours.    The  form  of  the  sen- 
sory function  here  also  appears  to  control  the 
character  of  the  attendant  feeling.    Though  we 
know  little  of  the  nature  or  visual  import  of 
the  retinal  reaction  to  colour  and  light,  we  are 
bound  to  assume  that  this  reaction  varies  with  the 
variation  in  the  character  of  the  stimulus,  that 
is,  of  the  ethereal  vibrations;  we  must  assume, 
therefore,  that  the  pleasures  of  the  eye  depend 
upon  the  mode  in  which  the  eye  does  its  work 
or  responds  to  its  stimulus. 

And   this   dependence  of   pleasure  upon   the 
mode    of    functional    activity,    as    distinguished 
from  its  energy  or  intensity,  appears  to  be  general. 
It  is  seen  in  the  motor  activities,  in  the  rhythmic 
movements  of  -the  dance,  of  speech,  of  thought, 
no  less  than  in  sensation  and  perception.    The 
conscious  organism,  it  appears,  is  not  indifferent 
as  to  how  it  acts  and  reacts,  but  it  discriminates 
as  among  the  possible  modes  of  its  activity.     It 
is  not  enough  that  there  be  life,  and  a  liberal 
quantum  of  life.    The  organism,  having  a  certain 
character,  demands  a  certain  character   or  kind 
of  life;  and  pleasure  and  pain  are  the  indicia 
of  the  fulfilment  or  frustration  of  this  demand. 

(5)  But    feeling,   as   it    invades   the  system, 
tends,  as  it  were,  to  irradiate.     It  seems  to  react 


V 

54     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

upon  its  own  generating  percept  or  idea  and  to 
increase  its   suggestive  or  associational   power. 
Hence  the  direct  affectional  result  of  such  percept 
or  idea  may  pass,  through  the  media  of  related 
or  similarly  -  toned  ideas,  into  a  multitude  of 
indirect  or  secondary  results;  and  it  not  seldom 
happens    that    the    secondary    results    outrank 
in  value  the  primary  feeling.    A  drop  of  dew, 
the  smell  of  new-mown  hay,  the  note  of  a  bird, 
or  the  voice  of  a  friend,  pleases  the  sense.    In  its 
direct  and  strictly  sensational  effect,  however,  it 
is  of  slight  affectional  moment ;  and  yet  it  may 
awaken,  in  a  mind  of  associative  and  imaginative 
power,  a  train  of  recollections  and  images  capable 
of  producing  a  profound  emotional  upheaval. 

We  must  add,  therefore,  to  the  functional  con- 
ditions of  pleasure  already  referred  to,  the  rela- 
tional character  of  the  functional  act.  This  is 
an  important  condition,  since  the  various  forms  of 
satisfaction  or  pleasure  show  great  differences  in 
respect  of  their  suggestiveness  or  stimulative 
effect.  Rou6  and  moralist  alike  have  remarked 
the  fleeting  nature  of  the  gratifications  of  mere 
appetite.  Such  pleasures,  whatever  their  value 
while  they  last,  have  little  in  them  to  suggest  other 
pleasurable  states  or  to  procure  their  own  revival. 
Dying  with  the  satisfaction  of  the  original  desire, 
they  leave  hardly  a  trace  behind.  The  pleasures 
of  social  converse,  on  the  other  hand,  of  literature, 
of  art,  and,  generally  speaking,  what  are  called 


Pleasure  and  Pain 


55 


the  pleasures  of  the  mind,  fall  almost  wholly 
within  the  class  of  suggested  pleasures,  the  ideas 
with  which  they  are  identified  being  readily 
recalled  and  in  the  highest  degree  fruitful  or 
suggestive.  They  become  in  fact  an  exhaustless 
source  of  satisfaction,  freshening  the  routine 
and  sweetening  the  drudgery  of  life,  i 

But  enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  direct 
attention  to  the  general  ftmctional  conditions  of 
feeling.    An  organ  is,  as  its  name  implies,  an 
instrument.     The  instrument  is  part  of  the  sys- 
tem in  which  it  is  formed,  and  it  is  developed 
with  reference  to  a  particular  kind  of  work  in 
the  interest  of  the  system.    Pleasure  and  pain 
are  the  subjective  indications  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  instrument  is  doing  its  work.    And  the 
pleasure  is  at  its  maximum  when  the  functional 
or   instrumental    activity    by  which    feeling    is 
generated  is  truest  to  its  type,  and  is  at  the  same 
time,  within  the  limits  of  structural  integrity  and 
the  requirements  of  the  office,  most  voluminous 
in  scope  and  intensest  in  degree.    The  psycho- 
physical system  is  then  most  effectively  discharging 
its   function.     In  other  words,  life  is  sweetest 
when  we  are  most  completely  and  successfully 
engaged  in  doing  the  work  of  life.  2 

And  what  is  this  work?    So  far  as  the  physical 

«  Compare  Bentham's  account  of  the  fecundity  of  a  pleasure. 
— Prin.  of  Morals  and  Legislation,  chap.  iv. 

2  Kara  iraffav  y^  aX<rev<rlv  i<rTiv  ijdovij,  dfiolas  Si  Kal  dtdpoiav  xal 


S6     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

functions  are  concerned  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
conservation  of    the  physical  organism  in  and 
through  the  completest  discharge  of  these  func- 
tions.    But  the  human  system  includes  psychical 
functions,  the  end  of  which  we  have  distinguished 
from  the  physical  end.     In  fact  the  attainment  of 
the  one  may  coincide  with  the  frustration  of  the 
other.    The  work  of  Ufe,  in  the  sense  which  in- 
terests us  here,  is  the  volitional  direction  of  life 
in  the  pursuit  of  conscious  ends,  for  the  achieve- 
ment of  which  a  sound  body  is  no  more  than  the 
instrument;  and  our  inquiry  may  be  said  to  begin 
where  the  field  of  medicine  and  hygiene  ends.    Our 
problem  is  to  find  a  rule  for  the  direction  of  con- 
scious or  volitional  action. 

0€<apla  v  iiSUrrri  Si  ij  reXeioTdrri'  reKetoTdrri  S4  ij  toO  «»  ixorros  T/At 
rb  ffirovdai&raTov  ruv  v<p'  ovrijv.    Aristotle :  Eth.  Nic.,  x.,  iv.,  5. 

For  pleasure  is  attendant  upon  every  sense,  as  it  is  also 
upon  every  act  of  intellect  and  contemplation;  but  the  most 
perfect  is  the  most  pleasant,  and  the  most  perfect  is  the  energy 
of  that  which  is  well-disposed  with  reference  to  the  best  of  aU 
the  objects  which  fall  under  it.     (Browne's  tr.) 


CHAPTER  VI 


DETERMINATION     OF     CONSCIOUS     FUNCTIONS     BY 

VOLITIONAL  ENDS 

IT  might  seem  that  we  should  be  able  to  deter- 
mine from  the  mere  form  of  the  system  we  are 
studying  the  uses  to  which  it  is  best  fitted,  and 
from  which  we  could  hope  to  derive  most  satis- 
faction. The  character  of  life's  work,  one  might 
say,  should  be  deducible  from  the  structure  of  the 
living  and  conscious  organism.  Let  us  see  what 
may  be  learned  in  this  way. 

The  human  system  is  a  system  of  structures, 
some  with  fixed  functions,  and  some  discharging  a 
varying  office.  The  vegetal  ftmctions  show  least 
variation.  The  heart,  the  Itmgs,  the  stomach, 
have  each  their  determinate  work,  which  they 
perform  with  monotonous  repetition.  Here  the 
function  is  apparent  in  the  structure.  And  the 
activity  of  the  structure,  having  a  fixed  and 
uniform  character,  is  withdrawn  for  the  most 
part  from  volitional  control. 

In  the  sensory  structures,  too,  we  find  a  certain 
fixity  and  uniformity  in  respect  of  the  ftmctions 
which  are  ordinarily  set  off  as  sensory.    If  we 

57 


58     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

regard  these  functions,  however,  as  in  organic 
relation  with  the  motor  reactions  which  they 
initiate,  and  with  which  they  form,  we  may  say,  a 
psychophysical  unit,  this  fixity  of  function  tends 
to  disappear.  It  is  still  present  in  the  reflex 
arc,  in  which  a  given  sensory  stimulus  evokes  a 
determinate  muscular  reaction.  But  as  the  forms 
of  the  sensory  impression  and  the  modes  of  the 
reaction  are  multiplied  and  compoimded,  a  given 
reaction  follows  a  given  stimulus  with  less  tmi- 
formity.  The  relation  between  stimulation  and 
movement  is  then  obscured.  And  the  relation 
becomes  at  length  so  complex  that  it  baffles  even 
the  most  intelligent  scrutiny,  and  the  reaction 
tends  to  assume  the  appearance  of  spontaneity. 
In  such  case  the  form  of  the  structure  manifestly 
throws  little  light  on  the  precise  character  of  the 
function.  It  gives  us  at  most  the  range  of  possible 
activity.  The  hand  can  grasp  a  dagger  and 
wield  a  pen  with  like  facility,  but  which  it  shall 
do  the  structure  of  the  hand  will  not  help  us  to 
decide. 

And  the  difficulty  is  still  greater  when  we  come 
to  consider  what  we  call  the  higher  functions  of  the 
conscious  organism,  that  is,  those  intellectual  func- 
tions which  are  disengaged  from  the  service  of  the 
unconscious  end  and  are  directed  to  ends  of  their 
own.  Here  the  specific  form  of  the  function  can- 
not be  made  out  by  the  examination  of  any 
structure  which  we  may  assume  to  be  implicated 


Determination  of  Functions 


59 


in  the  discharge  of  the  function.  In  the  first 
place,  the  brain,  with  its  cells  and  processes, 
or  the  structures  to  which  intellectual  activity 
is  usually  referred,  cannot,  save  in  the  most 
general  way,  be  mapped  out  or  defined  with 
reference  to  function  at  all.^  These  structures 
are  subject,  in  the  second  place,  to  indefinite 
variation  in  their  connection  and  arrangement, 
and  each  new  arrangement  constitutes  virtually 
a  new  structure.  Manifestly,  with  an  instrument 
adapted  to  uses  so  various,  we  need  a  principle  not 
disclosed  by  a  mere  inspection  of  the  instrument 
definitely  to  determine  its  use.  From  even  the 
completest  anatomy  of  the  brain  one  could  hardly 
hope  to  infer  a  code  for  the  guidance  of  volitional 
activity.  We  know,  generally,  that  there  are 
limits  beyond  which  the  cellular  reactions  cannot 
be  pushed  without  lesion  of  the  brain  tissue. 
But  to  know  the  limits  of  one's  strength  is  not 
to  know  how  to  apply  one's  strength.  The  rule 
of  life  is  not  written  in  the  cerebral  structures. 

The  law  of  volitional  conduct,[therefore,  must  be 
sought  for  elsewhere.  And  we  have  the  means 
of  its  determination  at  hand.  Structure,  function, 
and  end,  are  but  three  asp3cts  of  the  same  oi^anic 


•  Consciousness  .  .  .  being  mainly  of  things  seen  if  the 
stream  [of  innervation]  is  strongest  occipitally,  of  things 
heard  if  it  is  strongest  temporally,  of  things  felt,  etc.,  if  the 
stream  occupies  most  intensely  the  "motor  zone." — William 
James:  Psychology,  vol.  i.,  p.  65. 


6o     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

fact,  and  instead  of  looking  backwards  to  the 
structure,  we  may,  in  the  case  of  psychical  func- 
tions, look  forward,  under  the  guidance  of  the 
law  of  conscious  choice,  to  the  end.  Even  phy- 
sical functions  are  defined  with  reference  to  an 
end,  which  is,  ultimately,  the  conservation  of  the 
physical  system;  but  when  the  part  taken  by  a 
physical  structure  with  reference  to  this  end  is 
simple  and  constant,  a  mere  inspection  of  the 
structure  may  reveal  to  the  experienced  eye  its 
particular  function  and  proximate  end.  In  the 
mental  and  moral  life,  on  the  other  hand,  struc- 
ture, as  we  have  seen,  suggests  only  in  the  vaguest 
and  most  general  way  the  form  of  the  function. 
Our  only  recourse,  therefore,  is  to  infer  the  func- 
tion from  the  end. 

The  end,  it  may  be  said,  is  in  the  conscious  life 
continually  shifting,  and  requires  in  each  case 
a  fresh  structural  adjustment.  Butwith  the  intri- 
cacies of  structure  we  have  here  nothing  to  do,  if 
only  we  may  determine  the  function.  We  may 
even  ignore  the  details  of  function  save  as  they 
appear  in  our  practical  conduct.  This  is  what 
interests  us  as  ethical  students.  And  the  activities 
or  functions  which  constitute  the  practical  conduct 
of  life  are  determined  with  reference  to  ends. 
The  end  of  such  conduct  is  of  course  present  only 
in  idea,  but  this  idea  is  a  present  fact,  and  as 
idea  it  is  to  the  subject  at  least  always  discernible. 
It  is  the  volitional  idea.     In  volitional  choice. 


Determination  of  Functions        6i 

which  includes  moral  choice,  the  activities  of  the 
subject  are  always  directed  to  the  realisation  of  an 
idea;  and  the  mental  or  psychical  fimction  is 
determined  with  reference  to  this  idea,  the  con- 
ception and  execution  of  which  constitutes  what 
we  call  an  act  of  the  will.i 

If,  therefore,  the  principle  of  conscious  choice 
depends  on  the  relation  of  feeling  to  function,  and 
the  conscious  functions  proper  can  be  determined 

«  The  terminus  of  the  psychological  process  in  volition 
IS  always  an  idea.— W.    James:    Psychology,    vol.    ii.,    p. 
567- 

On  pourrait  done  .  .  .  d6finir  la  volition:  le  d6sir  determi- 
nant d'une  fin  et  de  ses  moyens,  con9us  comme  d6pendants 
d  un  premier  moyen  qui  est  ce  d^sir  m6me  et  d'une  demidre  fin 
qui  est  la  satisfaction  de  ce  d6sir.— A.  FouiU^e:  Revue  Philos 
August,  1892,  p.  171, 

When  we  wiU  to  do  something,  our  own  psychical  content 
at  that  moment  is  only  distinguished  from  other  psychical 
contents  by  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  a  desired  action  accom- 
panied  by  a  positive  emotional  tone  is  already  contained 
among  the  sensations  and  ideas  that  are  then  actuaUy  present 
—Ziehen:  Phys.  Psychology,  chap,  xv.,  p.  295.  (Van  Liew 
and  Beyer.) 

Unsere  Definition  [des  WoUens]  umfasste  vier  charakter- 
istische  Bestandteile.  Erstens  die  Vorstellung  eines  Erfolges. 
.  .  .  Der  zweite  Faktor  lag  in  dem  GefOhl  der  ZukOnftigkeit 

dieses  Vorstellungsinhaltes Wir  forderten  aber  noch 

em  dnttes.  Die  Vorbereitung,  die  als  mOglich  empfunden 
wird,  muss  so  gedacht  werden,  dass  sie  durch  eigene  Thatig- 
keit  geschaffen  oder  wenigstens  eingeleitet  werden  kann. 
Zu  alien  diesen  Empfindungskombinationen  trittnun  als  vier- 
ter  Faktor  die  Wahmehmung,  dass  jene  den  Erfolg  herbeifah- 
rende  Thatigkeit  sich  thatsachlich  realisiert.— Mflnsterberg- 
Grundziige  der  Psychologic,  Bd.  i,  S.  353-354-355. 


62     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

only  as  in  relation  to  ends,  the  doctrine  of  what 
we  call  the  conduct  of  life  resolves  itself  into  a 
doctrine  of  ends.  We  have  now  to  inquire,  ac- 
cordingly, how  the  choice  of  ends  influences  the 

afiEectional  life. 

We  may  distinguish,  as  bearing  on  the  theory  of 
conduct,  two  general  types  of  end:  the  incidental, 
mediate,  or  proximate  end;  and  the  essential, 
direct,  or  ultimate  end. 

This  is  a  distinction  well  recognised  in  ethical 
theory.     But  the  fact  that  life  is  a  stream  of  ten- 
dencies which  are  from  time  to  time  diverts!  or 
modified  or  variously  merged,  but  which  noachieve- 
ment  can  consummate,  creates  in  us  the  habit  of 
demanding  for  every  end  justification  in  some 
ulterior  end.    We  assume  that  nothing  can  be  good 
save  as  instrumental  to  some  other  good.     In  this 
respect  we  are  all  utilitarians.    The  good  we 
conceive  as  the  useful,  that  is,  as  serviceable  to 
some  end  beyond  itself.     But  if  anything  is  good 
there  must  be  something,  it  would  seem,  which  we 
find  in  its  own  right  good.    In  the  complex  and 
continuous    activity    which    constitutes    life   no 
act  or  state,  of  course,  can  be  viewed  as  in  entire 
isolation.    No  good  is  wholly  detachable.    The 
good  may  lead  to  other  good,  or  it  may  lead  to 
harm.     But    unless    we    share    the    pessimist's 
conviction  that  all  good  is  illusive,  we  must  allow 
that  there  are  some  ends  which  are  in  their  direct 
and  intrinsic  relations  to  the  pursuing  subject 


Determination  of  Functions        63 

good,  that  is,  which  are  conceived  to  be  good,  not 
as  means,  but  as  ends.* 

Such  ends  are  what  we  have  called  direct  or 
ultimate  ends.  Their  finality  is  not  finality 
in  the  order  of  time.  An  ultimate  aim  is  simply 
one  which  is  not  consciously  chosen  as  means  to 
any  ulterior  aim.  The  pleasure  which  attends  its 
pursuit  may  be  slight.  The  generating  function 
may  be  sensuous  or  intellectual,  or  of  any  order 
of  conscious  activity.  But  if  the  end  is  pursued, 
not  for  the  sake  of  other  good,  but  as  an  ultimate 
object  of  desire, 2  that  is,  as  good  or  satisfactory 
in  itself,  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  choice  an  ultimate 
end. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  sensuous  percep- 
tion. Where  the  mind  seeks  satisfaction  in  the 
sensory  impression,  in  the  tones  of  a  singer,  in  the 

«  m  «ij  Tt  tAos  i<rTl  Twp  TpaKTQy^  8  di*  ah-6  fiovUfjxSa,  tA  tfXXa 
Si  5tA  TovTo,  Kal  fi^  irdvra  di'  irepov  cUpojifi^da  (irpdeuri  yjkp  ofka  y'els 
Aveipov,  &<rr'  eTmt  kcj^v  Kal  futralap  r^v  6p€^ip)*  SijXop  d)s  tovt^  SLp 
€tv  TdyaSbp,  Kal  rd  Apurrop.— Aristotle:  Nic.  Eth.,  I.,  ii.,  i. 

If,  therefore,  there  is  some  end  of  all  that  we  do,  which 
we  wish  for  on  its  own  accotint,  and  if  we  wish  for  all  other 
things  on  account  of  this,  and  do  not  choose  ever3rthing  for 
the  sake  of  something  else  (for  thus  we  should  go  on  to 
infinity,  so  that  desire  wotdd  be  empty  and  vain),  it  is  evident 
that  this  must  be  "the  good."  and  the  greatest  good.— 
(Browne's  tr.) 

»  O^nstat  itaque  ex  his  omnibus,  nihil  nos  conari,  velle, 
appetere  neque  cupere,  quia  id  bonum  esse  iudicamus;  sed 
contra  nos  propterea  aliquid  bonum  esse  iudicare,  quia  id 
conamur,  volumus,  appetimus  atque  cupimus.— Spinoza: 
Ethices,  pars  iii.,  prop.  ix..  schol. 


1*1 


64     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

^- !  lines  of  a  statute,  in  the  blending  and  contrast  of 
colours,  the  satisfactory  impression  is,  so  far,  an 
ultimate  end.    And  the  impression  which  yields 
the  most  complete  satisfaction  is  that  ideal  or 
perfect  impression  which,  on  the  level  of  sensation 
the  principle  of  conscious  choice  leads  the  subject 
to  demand.    This   principle  thus   becomes   the 
inspiration  of  art.    Art  is,  indeed,  by  no  means 
merely  sensuous.     But  it  requires  that  the  sensory 
impression  which  is  its  vehicle  shall  be  perfect  m 
its  place  and  kind.    The  perfection  of  this  im- 
pression is  in  art  either  an  ultimate  aim  or  a 
part  of  the  ultimate  aim. 

The  distinction  as  between  proximate  and  ul- 
timate ends  obtains  also  in  respect  of  the  activi- 
ties  recognised  as  motor.     Most  of  what  we  call 
**work"    is  directed    to   proximate    ends.    The 
ulterior  end  or  interest  is  ahome,  or  social  position, 
or  some  interest  which  is  usually  distinct  from  our 
interest  in  the  work  itself.    In  *'play,''  on  the 
other  hand,  we  are  prompted  by  an  immediate 
interest :  we  play  from  sheer  delight  in  the  activities 
which  play  incites.    Occasionally,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  artist,  artisan,  writer,  or  thinker  who  enjoys 
his  work,  this  difference  disappears.    Play  is  then 
mere  relaxation  or  alternation  of  function.    But  it 
is  still  a  response  to  the  demand  for  exercise  by 
functions  unemployed,  and  the  enjoyment  which 
it  yields  springs  from  the  effective  discharge  of 
such  functions. 


Determination  of  Functions        65 

In  the  light  of  the  general  distinction  of  ends  as 
ultimate  and  proximate,  it  need  not  be  said  that 
ultimate  ends  demand  our  chief  consideration. 
These  are  the  ends  which  determine  the  general 
form  of  the  life,  or  the  character  of  its  functional 
activities,  and  so  determine  the  quality  of  the 
feeling  which  is   for  the  subject  the  ultimate 
standard  of  values.    Proximate  ends,  being  but 
means  to  the  ultimate  end,  we  should  not  choose 
for  their  own  sakes  alone  if  we  were  alive  to  their 
true  character  as  means.    But  we  confotmd  means 
with  ends  and  thus  miss  the  things  of  real  value. 
The  habit  of  toiling  for  the  means  of  living,  for  in- 
stance, becomes  so  strong  that  life  itself  in  its  broad 
functional  capacity  eludes  us,  and  its  affectional 
value  shrinks  to  the  compass  of  some  monotonous 
task  or  some  dull  round  of  utilitarian  employment. 
But  pleasure,  it  should  be  observed,  does  not 
attend  the  pursuit  of  the  ultimate  aim  alone. 
Feeling,  we  have  seen,  depends  on  function,  and 
functions  may  be  pleasurably  discharged  apart 
from  their  bearing  on  the  ultimate  end,  especially 
if  that  end  is  relatively  remote.     Hence  our  daily 
tasks,  which  for  their  own  sakes  might  never  be 
assumed,  are  not  altogether  irksome.     They  tend 
in  fact,  through  the  multitude  of  small  satisfac- 
tions which  they  seldom  fail  to  procure,  to  imbue 
our  lives  with  that  spirit  of  content  which  is  a 
substantial    element    of    happiness.    The    good 
workman,  indeed,  makes  his  work  for  the  time 


66     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

being  an  end  in  itself,  and  there  is  direct  satis- 
faction in  its  accomplishment. 

But  while  every  function  has  its  part  in  pro- 
ducing the  whole  affectional  result,  the  chief 
value  of  an  end  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  usually 
groups  the  activities  of  a  considerable  number  of 
functions,  each  of  which  may  procure  its  own  satis- 
faction, and  thus  secures  voltmie  and  variety  of 
feeHng.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  body  of  feeling 
thus  generated  is  of  much  more  value  than  the 
sum  of  the  particular  satisfactions  of  which  it  is 
compounded.  Feelings  are  diffusive,  and  the 
effect  of  their  interplay  is  such  that  each  enhances 
the  value  of  all.  We  know  how  worthless  for 
feeling  is  the  aimless  activity  which  depends  for 
its  incitement  and  direction  on  the  inclination 
of  the  moment,  that  is,  on  the  pursuit  of  detached 
and  constantly  shifting  aims.  By  failing  to  call 
forth  our  whole  fimctional  capacity  it  fails  to 
sotmd  our  capacity  for  feeling.  A  comprehensive 
end,  on  the  other  hand,  by  engaging  all  our 
activities  keeps  the  mind  active  and  alert,  enriches 
the  elemental  feelings  by  the  effects  of  contrast 
and  change,  and  thus  yields  in  its  ptirsuit  a  deep 
and  comprehensive  feeling  of  satisfaction. 

But  the  adoption  of  an  end,  while  it  compounds 
our  energies,  limits  and  defines  them.  It  involves 
the  fixation  of  the  attention  on  a  more  or  less 
definite  range  of  ideas,  conceived  as  relevant 
to  the  end,  and  the  inhibition  of  all  activities  in- 


Determination  of  Functions        67 

compatible  with  the  realisation  of  such  ideas. 
Only  in  this  way  can  our  energies  be  made  prac- 
tically effective.    And  the  attention  must  be  pro- 
tected  from  sudden  and  violent  arrest.    Thought 
must  be  free  to  run  to  its  object.     Distraction, 
indeed,  or  that  state  of  consciousness  in  which 
the  thoughts  are  checked  at  every  stage  and 
rudely  deflected  from  the  end  to  which  the  will 
is  adjusted,  is  the  very  type  of  mental  anguish. » 
The  attention  should  not,  however,  be  too  rigidly 
fixed.    The  processes  of  life  are  subject  to  a  certain 
rhythmical  variation,  which  is  related,  possibly, 
to  that  alternation  of  waste  and  nutrition,  expendi- 
ture and  restoration,  which  is  the  basis  of  vital 
action.  2     Change  is  in  fact  so  essential  in  con- 
scious activity  that  consciousness  disappears  when 
the  attention  is  too  rigidly  fixed:  sleep,  normal 
or   hypnotic,    supervenes.    And   the   main   end 
should   not  be  so  persistently  regarded  as   to 
interfere  with  the  due  consideration  of  subsidiary 
ends.     In  fact,  if  the  main  end  is  remote  it  is 
more  likely  to  be  attained  if  it  is  allowed  for 
a  time  to  lapse  entirely  from  the  field  of  vision. 

^  «  There  is  pleasure  in  proportion  as  a  maximum  of  attention 
IS  effectively  exercised,  and  pain  in  proportion  as  such  effective 
attention  is  frustrated  by  distractions,  shocks,  or  incomplete 
and  faulty  adaptations,  or  fails  of  exercise,  owing  to  the  nar- 
rowness of  the  field  of  consciousness  and  the  slowness  and 
wnaUness  of  its  changes.— J.  Ward:  Article  Psychology;  Enc, 

'  Flint:  Human  Physiology,  p.   171.     H.  Newell  Martin. 
I  he  Human  Body,  p.  19. 


68     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


The  mountain-climber,  scaling  a  cliff,  keeps 
his  eye  on  the  path  at  his  feet  rather  than  on  the 
heights  above  him.  It  is  enough  that  a  view 
of  the  summit  should  give  him  his  bearings. 

Taking,  then,  each  end  by  itself,  the  pleasure 
attainable  in  the  pursuit  of  an  end  depends  on  the 
effectiveness  of  the  pursuit  as  we  advance  to 
achievement.  And  achievement  crowns  the  satis- 
faction. The  structures  temporally  co-ordinated 
for  the  accomplishment  of  the  end  have  done  their 
office,  and  the  function  being  duly  discharged 
the  subject  is  so  far  satisfied.  The  function  has 
generated  its  modicum  of  feeling. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  no  aim  can  be  completely 
isolated.  Each  particular  aim  is  to  be  considered 
in  its  bearing  on  the  general  aims  of  life.  And 
ends,  even  when  successfully  achieved,  are  of  un- 
equal affectional  worth.  Jtist  as  we  find  grounds 
for  choice  as  among  sensory  functions  the  form 
of  which  has  been  fixed  by  the  structure  of  the 
physical  system,  so  we  may  choose  among  those 
more  variable  and  complex  functions  the  form 
of  which  is  for  the  time  being  fixed  by  means  of 
a  volitional  idea  or  preconceived  end.  We  are 
constitutionally  predisposed  to  find  certain  ends 
more  pleasurable  than  others.  And  ends  in  general 
may  be  made  more  effective,  and  therefore  more 
pleasurable,  by  organisation.  It  remains  for  us 
to  consider,  then,  how  the  principle  of  conscious 
choice  bears  on  the  choice  and  organisation  of  ends. 


>a 


SECTION  III 

Organisation  of  Volitional  Ends 

CHAPTER  VII 

examination  of  methods  and   principles  of 
organisation:  harmony,  reason,  the  moral 

SENSE,    SELF-DEVELOPMENT 

IN  any  analysis  of  the  conscious  life  the  tendency 
A    is  all  but  inevitable  to  isolate  the  results  of  our 
analysis.    The  painstaking  psychologist  is  misled 
by  his  pains.    He  atomises.    The  various  aspects 
of  our  psychic  activity  tend  imder  his  scrutiny 
to    become    distinct    and    concrete.    Sensation, 
judgment,  will,  and  other  abstractions  are  hypos- 
tatised  and  treated  as  independent  powere  in  a 
psychic  federation.     It  is  well  to  be  reminded, 
therefore,  from  time  to  time,  that  the  individual 
with  all  his  qualities  must  himself  be  present 
to  exhibit  any  given  quality  or  to  discharge  any 
particular  function.    The  general  system  is  pre- 
supposed in  each  of  its  parts. 

We  must  conceive  of  the  conscious  life,  more- 
over, as  in  effect  a  continuous  life.  True,  the 
threads    which    bind    its    successive   states   are 

69 


70    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

often  unseen,  and  sleep  gives  daily  pause  to  its 
waking  phases.  But  in  the  psycho-physical  sys- 
tem of  which  the  conscious  state  is  an  aspect  the 
causal  relation,  broadly  conceived,  is,  we  may 
fairly  assimie,  never  disrupted;  that  is  to  say, 
each  conscious  state  is  through  this  system 
related  to  and  conditioned  by  the  preceding 
states,  and  stands  itself  in  like  systematic  con- 
nection with  the  states  which  follow.^ 

To  look  at  life,  therefore,  as  a  mere  succession 
of  independent  moments,  or  to  estimate  the  value 
of  any  phase  of  experience  by  its  immediate 
affectional  result,  is  to  ignore  an  essential  law  of 
life.  No  sound  theory  of  conduct  can  be  derived 
from  a  view  of  the  merely  dislocated  elements 
of  conduct.  The  biologist  might  as  well  attempt 
to  spell  out  the  laws  of  the  physical  life  by  break- 
ing up  the  corporeal  system  and  studying  the 
fragments.  2  The  delights  of  the  voluptuary,  the 
pains  of  discipline,  are  to  be  reckoned  with  their 
sequel.  Each  succeeding  moment  marks  the 
transition  from  phase  to  phase  of  a  continuous 
vital  act ;  and  its  value  can  be  estimated  only  as 

«  L'lndividtialit^  psychique  et  I'incHvidualit^  phjrsiologique 
sont  paralitica  ...  la  conscience  s'unifie  ou  se  disperse  avec 
I'organisme. — Ribot:  Maladies  de  la  PersonnaliU,  p.  157. 
2  Wer  will  was  Lebendigs  erkennen  und  beschreiben 
Sucht  erst  den  Geist  herauszutreiben; 
Dann  hat  er  die  Theile  in  seiner  Hand, 
Fehlt,  leider!  nur  das  geistige  Band. 

Goethe:  Faust. 


Principles  of  Organisation  71 

it  is  considered  in  relation  to  this  continuous 
act. 

But  this  unitary  system  which,  viewed  as  a 
natural  product,  is  so  completely  organised,  ex- 
hibits great  inconsistency  and  inconstancy  in 
the  pursuit  of  its  conscious  aims.  The  conscious 
life,  considered  by  itself,  is  short-sighted,  vacil- 
lating, irrational.  It  is  guided  by  no  fixed  princi- 
ple and  requires  reorganisation  under  the  guidance 
of  a  principle. 

But  we  are  not  even  agreed  as  to  our  principle. 
The   theoretical    difficulty  is    perhaps   not   the 
greatest  of  our  difficulties.    It  is  harder,  appar- 
ently, to  train  our  feet  to  keep  the  path  than  to 
discover  the  path ;  but  it  must  be  admitted  that 
a  sound  theory,  if  held  with  conviction,  would 
be  a  valuable  aid  to  the  establishment  of  a  sound 
practice.    We  may  say,  in  fact,  that  our  practice 
is  bad  because,  to  a  greater  extent  possibly  than 
most  of  us  are  willing  to  allow,  we  ard  really  un- 
convinced  of  the   soundness  of  the   principles 
in  which  we  have  been  reared  and  to  which  we 
loosely  adhere.    At  any  rate  all  schools  of  ethical 
thought  agree  in  the  demand  for  a  principle  of 
unity  in  the  conscious  conduct  of  life,  and  each 
school  offers  such  a  principle.     A  brief  review  of 
the  leading  types  of  ethical  theory  may  be  of  use, 
therefore,  in  familiarising  our  minds  with  the  mat- 
ter of  ethical  inquiry  and  in  strengthening  and  de- 
veloping the  theory  we  have  outlined  and  defended. 


72     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

It  has  been  held  that  we  have  in  the  idea  of 
Harmony  an  adequate  principle  of  conduct.* 
If  we  should  control  the  intent  of  our  acts,  it  is 
urged,  so  as  to  suppress  all  internal  conflict,  the 
life  could  not  fail  to  be  guided  aright.  This 
principle  is  recognised,  among  others,  in  the 
penetrating  but  somewhat  imaginative  treatment 
which  the  problems  of  conduct  receive  at  the 
hands  of  Plato.  2  And  interpreted  and  supple- 
mented, as  it  usually  is,  with  reference  to  a 
standard  which  requires  more  than  the  mere  sup- 
pression of  conflict,  the  principle  is  of  undoubted 
practical  value  and  approaches  very  closely  to  the 
principle  here  maintained.  But  it  needs  inter- 
pretation and  supplement. 

The  term  ** harmony"  is,  in  the  first  place, 

»  An  interest  in  something  is  of  an  immediate  character: 
signifies  therefore:  its  harmony  or  disharmony  with  the  im- 
pulse is  felt  in  advance  of  all  reasoning.  But  I  feel  only  my- 
self, and  hence  the  harmony  or  disharmony  must  be  in  myself, 
or  must  be  simply  a  harmony  or  disharmony  with  myself. 
— ^Johann  Gottlieb  Fichte:  The  Science  of  Ethics,  pp.  150- 
151   (Kroeger's  tr.). 

Volitions,  therefore,  when  judged  practically,  are  judged 
by  the  anticipated  harmony  or  discord  which  they  tend 
to  produce  in  the  character  of  the  agent. — Shadworth  H. 
Hodgson:  Metaphysic  of  Experience,  book  iii.,  chap,  vi., 
p.  66. 

» The  just  man  does  not  permit  the  several  elements 
within  him  to  meddle  with  one  another,  or  any  of  them 
to  do  the  work  of  others,  but  he  sets  in  order  his  own  inner 
life,  and  is  his  own  master,  and  at  peace  with  himself,  etc. 
—Plato:  Republic,  443,  D-  E.   (Jowett's  tr.). 


Principles  of  Organisation  73 

figurative.*  And  even  in  its  primary  sense,  that 
is,  as  applied  to  the  relations  or  effects  of  sotmd, 
it  refers  us  to  a  standard  in  human  sensibility. 
The  harmony  must  be  felt.  Harmonious  sotmds 
are  sounds  which  when  heard  together  satisfy 
'*the  ear."  Investigation  may  disclose  mathe- 
matical or  other  relations  among  the  aerial  vibra- 
tions to  which  we  refer  the  sounds,  but  this  does 
not  justify  us  in  identifying  the  harmonious  qual- 
ity  of  the  sounds  with  any  such  relations.  It  is 
only  within  a  limited  range  that  the  vibrations 
are  perceived  at  all  as  soimd,  and  the  sounds 
would  certainly  not  be  harmonious,  whatever  the 
character  of  the  waves  to  which  we  refer  them, 
if  they  had  no  power  to  please.  To  determine 
whether  they  are  harmonious  or  not  they  must 
be  tried  by  a  certain  standard,  and  this  standard 
must  be  sought,  ultimately,  in  the  form  of  the 
human  sense. 

If  now,  by  a  figure,  we  apply  the  term  "har- 
monious** to  a  certain  concurrence  of  tendencies 
in  the  acts  of  the  individual,  the  term  will  be  of 
little  use  in  suggesting  a  norm  of  conduct  imless 

»  Another  Source  of  mutual  Misapprehension  on  this  Sub- 
ject hath  been  "the  introduction  of  metaphorical  Expressions 
instead  of  proper  ones."  Nothing  is  so  common  among  the 
Writers  on  Morality,  as  "the  Harmony  of  Virtue"— "the 
Proportion  of  Virtue."  .  .  .  This  figurative  manner  tends  to 
mislead  us.  .  .  .  It  induceth  a  Persuasion  that  Virtue  is 
excellent  without  Regard  to  any  of  its  Consequences. — ^John 
Brown:  On  the  Motives  to  Virtue,  Essay  II.,  sec.  vi. 


74     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


reference  is  made  to  some  subjective  test,  some 
form  of  feeling.  It  is  not  enough  to  show  that  our 
acts  reinforce  one  another,  or,  if  such  a  thing 
were  possible,  never  conflict.  A  conflict  may- 
be ended  by  the  subjugation  of  a  contestant. 
Any  imperious  principle,  a  selfish  ambition,  say,  or 
the  propensity  to  mere  animal  satisfaction,  may 
become  paramoimt,  subduing  all  the  more  generous 
instincts  and  establishing  in  the  soul  a  peace 
which  might  be  called  harmony,  but  which  were 
ethically  the  peace  of  desolation.  Harmony  in 
this  barren  sense  would  be  consistent  with  ex- 
tremely poor  values  in  feeling,  and  would  afford 
us  no  principle  by  which  to  determine,  as  among 
conflicting  types,  the  true  form  of  the  himian  type. 
Consistency  would  be  the  only  virtue,  and  we 
might  be  as  the  cat  or  the  tiger,  consistently  self- 
ish or  ferocious.  Self-preservation  might  be  the 
first  and  the  last  law  of  nature.  And  like  criticism 
applies  to  those  who  seek  their  ethical  principle 
in  some  law  which  harmonises  different  wills,* 
without  explicit  reference  to  the  nature  or  test 
of  the  harmony  desired. 

This  criticism  would  be  obviated  if,  dropping 
the  figure,  we  shotald  interpret  the  term  *  *  harmony*  * 

«  The  ultimate  aim  of  life  camiot  be  merely  the  extension  of 
the  power  to  realise  the  wills  that  are  active  about  us,  but 
must  at  last  be  fotmd  by  defining  the  course  of  action  that 
best  harmonises  these  wills. — ^Josiah  Royce:  The  Religious 
Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  174. — Harmonize  thy  will  with  the 
world's  Will. — The  World  and  the  Individual,  vol.  ii.,  p.  348. 


Principles  of  Organisation         75 


by  reference  to  a  subjective  test  analogous  to  the 
test  to  which  sounds  are  submitted,  and  where 
harmony  is  adopted  as  an  ethical  principle 
some  such  test  is  actually  implied.  But  the  test 
is  afifectional.  The  soul  must  be  "satisfied,'* 
and  the  harmony  is  perfect  only  when  the  soul 
is  completely  satisfied,  or,  in  other  words,  when 
the  feeling  has  that  maximimi  worth  which  in 
ethical  discourse  is  called  '^blessedness.**  And 
so  interpreted  or  supplemented,  the  principle 
of  harmony  becomes  identical  with  the  principle 
here  maintained. 

Turning  now  to  another  school  of  thinkers,  we 
find  them  looking  to  Reason  for  the  principle 
of  ethical  distinctions,  that  is,  to  the  reason 
regarded  as  a  several  and  independent  faculty 
of  the  mind.  Reason,  so  conceived,  and  the 
moral  nature  are  correlatives :  man  is  moral  because 
he  has  reason,  reason  furnishing  both  the  ground 
and  the  motive  for  moral  discrimination.  Con- 
sciousness in  the  brute,  it  is  held,  serves  only 
the  brutish  end,  the  conservation  of  the  animal 
self,  and  it  is  determined  to  this  end  through  the 
brute*s  sensibility  to  pleasure  and  pain.  Your 
animal  is  thus  your  only  consistent  hedonist. 
But  reason,  in  this  view,  marks  the  advent  in  man 
of  a  new  principle,  overriding  the  merely  animal 
impulsion,  and  disclosing  for  the  first  time  in 
the  animate  series  the  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong.     And  moral  distinctions  when  thus 


76    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

recognised  are,  according  to  this  contention, 
recognised  as  ultimate.  The  authority  of  the 
reason  which  discloses  them  is  accepted  as  an 
indisputable  fact  of  owe  nature  and  as  supreme.  * 
The  reason,  upon  this  theory,  has  nothing  in 
common  with  the  animal  nature:  it  simply  over- 


»  Handle  so,  dass  die  Maxime  deines  Willens  jederzeit 
zugleich  als  Prinzip  einer  allgemeinen  Gesetzgebung  gelten 
konne.  .  .  .  Man  kann  das  Bewusstsein  dieses  Grundgesetzes 
ein  Faktum  der  Vemunft  nennen. — Immanuel  Kant:  Kr, 
der  Prakt.  Vemunft^  book  i.,  sec.  7. 

Hugo  Grotius:  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacts,  liber,  i.,  cap.  ii.,  1., 
I.  2,  3. 

Ralph  Cudworth :  A  Treatise  concerning  Eternal  and  /m- 
mutable  Morality,  book  i.,  chap.  ii. 

Richard  Price:  A  Review  of  the  Principal  Questions,  etc., 
in  Morals,  chap.  i. 

Samuel  Clarke:  Discourse  upon  Natural  Religion. 

The  Reason  is  not  only  the  faculty  by  which  we  reason  from 
fundamental  principles  when  we  have  anyhow  attained 
and  assumed  these;  it  is  also  the  faculty  by  which  we  appre- 
hend fundamental  principles. — WiYLiaxaWheweM'. Elements  of 
Morality,  book  i.,  chap,  i.,  art.  10. 

Reason  is  the  self -objectifying  consciousness.  It  consti- 
tutes, as  we  have  seen,  the  capability  in  man  of  seeking 
an  absolute  good  and  of  conceiving  this  good  as  common  to 
others  with  himself:  and  it  is  this  capability  which  alone  ren- 
ders him  a  possible  author  and  a  self-submitting  subject 
of  law. — ^T.  H.  Green:  Prol.  to  Ethics,  book  iii.,  chap,  iii., 
p.  214. 

Reason  itself  supplies  the  principles  of  rectitude,  which 
cannot  be  reached  by  induction  from  experience,  as  all  rules 
of  expediency  are. — H.  Calderwood:  Philos.  Rev.,  July, 
1896,  p.  338. 

The  ethical  function  of  Reason  is  sovereign  and  legis- 
lative.— ^James  Seth:  /«^».  Jour,  of  Ethics,  July,  1896,  p.  423. 


Principles  of  Organisation  77 

rules  it.  And  there  is,  in  this  view,  nothing  in  the 
moral  nature  which  can  be  analysed  into  simpler 
elements,  or  which  can  be  regarded  as  a  develop- 
ment from  some  principle  of  natural  action  less 
specific  and  complex.  The  appearance  of  reason 
and  the  moral  natiare  marks  a  saUus  in  the  natural 
series. 

This  view  of  the  matter  was  not  imnatural  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  psychological  inquiry.  An 
ethical  principle  for  which  no  solvent  had  been 
foimd  was  thus  in  a  sort  accounted  for.  It  was 
an  ultimate  fact,  marking  the  assumption  rather 
than  the  development  of  a  new  nature,  and  involv- 
ing by  consequence  subjection  to  a  new  code 
of  laws.  But  gaps  in  our  knowledge  of  the  devel- 
opmental series  are  not  gaps  in  the  series  itself, 
and  as  these  gaps  are  filled  in  by  a  comparative 
study  of  the  forms  of  conscious  life  man*s  reason 
appears  rather  as  a  growth  than  as  a  sudden  and 
special  creation.  We  cannot  regard  it  now  as 
a  unique  and  underived  faculty  imposing  upon 
the  natural  propensities  an  alien  and  absolute 
law.  It  includes  under  one  general  term  all  the 
abstracting,  discriminating,  comparing,  and  re- 
flective processes  of  the  mind.  Reason,  indeed, 
is  scarcely  separable  from  any  grade  or  phase  of 
intelligence.  Merely  to  perceive  is  to  interpret.^ 
There  is  therefore  an  inferential  or  rational  ele- 

»  Perception  is  an  attempt  at  interpretation. — H.  HofiPding: 
Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  207  (Lowndes). 


78    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Principles  of  Organisation  79 


ment  implicit  in  perception,  and  we  must  concede 
this  element  in  germinal  form  to  the  intelligence 
even  of  the  brute. 

But  to  concede  so  much  is  not  to  assume  that 
there  is  nothing  distinctive  and  characteristic 
in  himian  reason.     For  the  higher  or  more  com- 
plex instances  of  the  inferential  process  we  must 
look  to  the  treatment  of  abstract  conceptions, 
which  are  derived  primarily  from  the  materials  of 
perception.      For  the  formation  of  such  concep- 
tions language  is  essential.  1  And  since  the  thought 
of  man  alone  is  articulate,  the  main  exemplification 
of  the  rational  consciousness,  including  the  forma- 
tion of  moral  concepts,  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the 
operations  of  the  htmian  mind.    Thought  which 
is  inarticulate  wants  more  than  the  means  of  ex- 
pression.    It  wants  the  power  of  analysis  and  also 
that  capacity  for  constructive  activity  which  de- 
pends for  its  materials  on  the  results  of  analysis. 
Hence  the  extreme  simplicity  of  brute  intelligence 
as  compared  with  that  of  man.    The  gap  between 
the  two  is  wide.     But  it  were  rash  to  assert  that 
no  developmental  process  can  span  it.    Reason, 
the  capacity  for  inferential  thought,  being  implicit 

«  When  we  remember  that  thought  is  in  a  large  measure 
internal  speech,  and  that  the  abstract  relations  and  qualities 
of  objects  are  inseparably  bound  up  with  words,  we  can 
readily  see  that  we  may  call  up  the  images  symbolised  in 
words,  however  abstract  they  may  be,  by  making  the  articula- 
tory  movements  in  which  we  have  symbolised  them.— 
Ferrier:  Functions  of  the  Brain,  chap,  xii.,  sec.  17  (2d  ed.). 


in  perception,  must  exist  in  elemental  form  far 
below  the  level  of  human  intelligence,  and  must 
be  assimied  to  develop  with  the  development  of 
the  conscious  life  and  with  the  increasing  supply  of 
matter  to  which  it  can  be  applied.  It  is  a  capacity 
which  grows. 

And  if  the  capacity  to  reason  is  itself  a  growth 
we  have  little  ground  to  doubt  that  the  moral  prin- 
ciples assumed  to  have  been  disclosed  by  the  reason 
have  been  developed  or  revealed  by  a  like  gradual 
process.  Proof  of  this  development  would  appear 
in  a  resolution  of  such  principles  into  simpler 
constituents.  Such  a  resolution  or  analysis  we 
have  undertaken  in  this  thesis. 

There  is,  however,  another  form  of  the  general 
theory  of  morals  which  presents  moral  distinctions 
as  ultimate.  Reason,  it  is  urged,  is  not  the  bearer 
of  ends  at  all.  It  can  only  distinguish,  compare, 
and  define  among  ends  already  determined  in  the 
mind  or  in  the  constitution  in  which  it  is  operative. 
Nor  can  it,  without  a  criterion  which  reason  may 
find  but  does  not  bring,  assign  a  superior  or  an 
inferior  place  to  any  given  end.  ^  Reason  has  in 
itself  no  preferences.  Given  an  end,  reason 
discloses,  upon  a  review  of  the  whole  situation,  the 

»  It  appears  evident,  that  the  ultimate  ends  of  human 
actions  can  never,  in  any  case,  be  accounted  for  by  reason, 
but  recommend  themselves  entirely  to  the  sentiments  and 
affections  of  mankind,  without  any  dependence  on  the 
intellectual  faculties.— David  Hume:  Inquiry  concerning  the 
Principles  of  Morals,  App.  i. 


? 


p 

h 

b 


An 


8o    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

fittest  means  for  the  attainment  of  the  end ;  and 
reason,  upon  due  consideration  of  our  actions, 
may  point  out  their  probable  results.  But  why 
one  end  should  be  preferred  to  another  depends, 
it  is  said,  upon  no  merely  reflective  or  rational 
process,  but  upon  a  form  of  htrnian  sensibility. 
And  this  sense,  as  applied  to  moral  relations,  is 
specific  and  unique.  Right  and  wrong  are  not, 
in  this  view,  as  they  are  in  some  forms  of  rational- 
istic ethics,  distinctions  inherent  in  our  acts  them- 
selves, or  deducible  from  the  objective  relations  of 
any  act ;  nor  is  the  principle  of  moral  distinctions 
one  which  we  may  resolve  into  non-moral  or  pre- 
moral  elements.  To  make  such  distinctions  is 
the  office  of  a  special  sense,  and  we  are  sensible 
in  making  them  of  an  inward  preference  for  that 
which  we  feel  to  be  right  even  when  as  a  matter 
of  fact  we  choose  the  wrong.  And  this  special 
sense  has  been  called  the  Moral  Sense. » 


»  Moral  Distinctions  derived  from  a  Moral  Sense. — ^To  have 
the  sense  of  virtue,  is  nothing  but  to  feel  a  satisfaction  of  a 
particular  kind  from  the  contemplation  of  a  character.  The 
very  feeling  constitutes  our  praise  or  admiration.  .  .  .  The 
case  is  the  same  as  in  our  judgments  concerning  all  kinds 
of  beauty,  and  tastes  and  sensations. — David  Hume:  A 
Treatise  of  Human  Nature^  book  iii.,  part  i.,  sec.  ii. 

This  moral  Sense,  either  of  our  own  Actions,  or  of  those 
of  others,  has  this  in  common  with  our  other  Senses,  that 
however  oiu:  Desire  of  Virtue  may  be  counterballanc'd  by 
Interest,  our  Sentiment  or  Perception  of  its  Beauty  cannot; 
as  it  certainly  might  be,  if  the  only  Ground  of  our  Approbation 
were  Views  of  Advantage. — Francis  Hutcheson:  An  Inquiry 


Principles  of  Organisation  8i 

The  theory  of  a  Moral  Sense,  it  will  be  seen, 
may  be  made  the  basis  of  Inttntionism,  which 
holds  to  an  immediate  apprehension  of  the  para- 
mount law  of  conduct,  as  readily  as  Rationalism. 
And  it  is  open  to  the  same  fimdamental  objection 
as  that  which  we  urged  against  Rationalism:  it 
halts  in  its  analysis,  and  makes  that  ultimate  which 
later  inquiry  shows  to  be  derived.  So  far  as  it 
refers  us  to  a  subjective  standard  it  is  doubtless 
right.  We  have  ourselves  found  it  necessary 
to  refer  to  such  a  standard ;  but  we  have  placed 
it  in  the  affective  or  general  evaluative  aspect 
of  consciousness,  which  is  broader  and  more 
elementary  than  moral  feeling,  and  which  only 


concerning  the  original  of  our  ideas  of  Virtue  or  Moral  Good, 
aec  I.     (British  Moralists,  vol.  i.) 

Human  actions  .  .  .  are  further  distinguished  in  our 
perception  of  them,  as  fit,  right,  and  meet  to  be  done,  or  as 
unfit,  tmmeet,  and  wrong  to  be  done.  .  .  .  The  power  or 
faculty  by  which  we  perceive  this  difference  among  actions; 
passeth  imder  the  name  of  the  moral  sense. — Henry  Home, 
Lord  Kames:  Essays  on  the  Principles  of  Morality  and  Natural 
Religion,  Essay  II.,  chap.  ii.     (Brit.  Mor.,  vol.  ii.) 

To  this  ultimate  fact  ...  we  must  always  come  in 
estimating  virtue,  whatever  analysis  we  may  make  or  think 
that  we  have  made.  It  is  in  this  respect,  as  in  many  others, 
like  the  kmdred  emotion  of  beauty. — Thomas  Brown:  Lectures 
on  Ethics,  p.  20.     (Edin.,  1846.) 

Our  knowledge  of  the  Supreme  Excellence  .  .  .  springs 
from  that  instinctive  or  moral  nature,  which  is  as  truly  a 
part  of  our  being  as  is  our  reason,  and  which  teaches  us  what 
reason  could  never  teach,  the  supreme  and  transcendent  excel- 
lence of  moral  good. — ^William  Edward  Hartpole  Lecky :  Hist, 
of  Eur.  Morals,  chap,  i.,  p.  $6. 
6 


82    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Principles  of  Organisation         83 


in 


in  specific  relations,  as  we  shall  see,  becomes  moral 
feeling.  The  theory  we  are  considering,  on  the 
other  hand,  makes  moral  distinctions  elementary, 
and  endows  the  mind  with  an  irresoluble  faculty 
for  marking  these  distinctions.  Like  Rationalism, 
the  theory  of  a  Moral  Sense  assumes  to  be  at  the 
end  of  the  road  because  it  can  itself  go  no  farther. 
Both  theories,  therefore,  while  they  have  many 
practical  merits,  betray  the  same  defective  analysis, 
the  same  psychological  weakness.  And  both 
might  be  harmonised  with  the  theory  of  this  essay 
if  their  ultimate  terms  were  broken  up  into  their 
psychological  elements. 

Starting  from  a  different  point  of  view  there 
appears  another  main  tendency  of  ethical  thought 


The  feeling  which  determines  conduct  is  not  a  judgment 
at  all,  though  it  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  serious  judg- 
ments. It  is  a  simple  unanalysable  fact. — Leslie  Stephen: 
The  Science  of  Ethics ^  chap,  ii.,  p.  57. 

By  Morals  or  Ethic  I  mean  the  doctrine  of  a  special  kind 
of  pleasure  or  displeasure,  which  is  felt  by  the  human  mind 
in  contemplating  certain  courses  of  conduct,  whereby  they 
are  felt  to  be  right  or  wrong,  and  of  a  special  desire  to  do 
the  right  things  and  avoid  the  wrong  ones. — William  Kingdon 
Clifford:  Lectures  and  Essays,  vol.  i.,  p.  106. 

To  the  implicit  beliefs  secreted  within  our  moral  conscious- 
ness let  precisely  so  much  be  conceded  as  we  readily  grant 
to  the  testimony  of  perception,  and  it  will  appear  that,  in 
learning  ourselves,  we  discover  also  what  is  beyond  and 
above  ourselves.  If  then  we  can  but  state  accurately  the 
essence  of  the  moral  sentiments,  and  find  the  propositions 
they  assume,  we  reach  the  last  resorts  of  theoretic  truth. 
— ^James  Martineau:  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  vol.  ii.,  p.  9. 


which,  under  the  name  of  Self-realisation  or 
Self -development,  finds  its  organising  principle 
in  the  form  of  the  conscious  organism  itself.^ 
With  this  point  of  view  we  are  already  familiar. 
The  human  organism,  it  is  averred,  is  a  complex 
instrument,  and  we  have  only  to  consider  the 
nature  of  this  instrimient,  or  the  form  of  the  self, 
to  determine  its  use.  Self-development  would 
follow  then  from  a  sustained  and  consistent  appli- 
cation of  the  self  as  instrument  to  its  use  so 
determined. 

But  the  possibilities  of  the  psycho-physical 
system  are,  as  we  have  seen,  so  vast  that  no 
mere  inspection  of  the  instrument  will  dis- 
close its  use  with  such  definiteness  as  to  re- 
veal   the    law    of  conduct.      In   the    field    of 

>  It  [the  doctrine  of  goods]  will  .  .  .  regard  as  the  highest 
good,  stating  it  in  a  general  formula,  a  perfect  life,  that  is, 
a  life  leading  to  the  complete  development  of  the  bodily  and 
mental  powers,  and  to  their  full  exercise  in  all  the  spheres  of 
human  existence,  etc. — Friedrich  Paulsen:  A  System  of 
Ethics,  p.  4  (Thilly's  tr). 

If  we  have  any  rational  end  at  all  it  must  consist  in  some 
kind  of  realisation  of  our  nature  as  a  whole. — ^John  S.  Mc- 
Kenzie:  Introdtiction  to  Social  Philosophy,  p.  255. 

Moral  good  may  be  defined  in  general  as  conduct  conducive 
to  the  nattiral  good  or  perfection  of  the  agent  and  those 
persons  affected  by  his  action. — Edith  Simcox:  Natural  Law, 
p.  105. 

The  final  end  with  which  morality  is  identified,  or  under 
which  it  is  included,  can  be  expressed  not  otherwise  than 
by  self-realisation. — F.  H.  Bradley:  Ethical  Studies,  Essay  II., 
p.  59  (Anas,  reprint). 


<ltt 


• 


!il   {    I 


84     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

volitional  conduct  this  use  must  be  learned 
from  a  consideration  of  ends.  True,  the  self 
which  is  to  be  realised  is  itself  an  end,  a  repre- 
sentation or  an  ideal  of  the  manner  of  man  one 
fain  would  become.  But  the  theory  requires 
a  definite  and  fairly  consistent  idea  of  this  end, 
without  which  the  idea  of  self-realisation  re- 
mains vague  and  as  a  directive  and  shaping  in- 
fluence ineffective. 

Such  an  idea  of  the  self  maybe  virtually  present, 
however,  without  being  explicitly  recognised  or 
grasped  as  a  whole.     It  may  operate  piecemeal,  as 
it  were.     Certain  acts  and  attitudes  seem  ad- 
mirable,   certain   others    seem    despicable    and 
unworthy  of  the  self.     And  the  fact  that  we  have 
in  the  affective  life,  or  the  feelings,  a  constantly 
available  test  of  the  value  of  our  experience 
and  acts  compels  us  to  put  a  practical  gloss  on 
all  our  theories  and  tacitly  adjust  them  to  the  facts 
of  life.     We  unwittingly  asstmie  in  our  theories 
that  which  is  never  wanting  in  our  lives.     And 
with  the  aid  of  such  gloss  and  silent  comment  the 
theory  of  self-development  acquires  a  form  and 
completeness    which    cannot,    without    supple- 
ment ,  be  found  in  the  theory  itself.    The  necessary 
supplement  of  this  theory  is  a  true  conception 
of  the  self  as  end  to  be  realised.     But  this  ideal 
self  is  not  simply  given.     It  is  a  construction,  and 
varies  in  form;  and  it  stands  itself  in  need  of  a 
principle  to  determine  the  true  law  of  its  con- 


Principles  of  Organisation  85 

struction.*  And  such  a  principle  it  might  find 
in  what  we  have  suggested  as  the  law  of  conscious 
choice. 

«  The  Self  in  Psychology  seems  always  to  be  identified 
with  some  positive  content,  and  not  always  with  the  same. — 
B.  Bosanquet:  Psychology  of  the  Moral  Self,  p.  8  (London, 

1897). 
The  end  may  therefore  in  all  conscious  action  be  said  to  be 

self-realisation,  though  the  nature  of  this  end  differs  accord- 
ing to  each  man's  conception  of  self. — ^W.  R.  Sorley:  On  the 
Ethics  of  Naturalism,  p.  287. 


«* 


Pleasure  as  an  Organising  Principle    87 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PLEASURE  AS  AN  ORGANISING  PRINCIPLE 

IT  remains  now  to  consider  the  theory  that 
the  organising  principle  which  alone  can 
give  full  value  to  life  and  furnish  a  basis  for 
morals  is  happiness  or  pleasure.  This  theory, 
which  has  assumed  different  forms  and  gone  imder 
different  names,  is  as  old  as  ethical  discussion, 
and  the  ethical  student  needs  only  to  be  reminded 
of  its  main  contention,  namely,  that  pleasure  is 
itself  the  supreme  and  ultimate  end.  A  word 
of  explanation  may  be  necessary,  however,  to 
show  its  relation  to  our  own  contention.  And 
to  save  time  we  may  refer  to  this  theory  generally 
as  hedonism,  using  the  term  in  as  broad  a  sense 
as  we  have  used  the  word  pleasxire. 

Much  of  the  criticism  which  has  been  directed 
against  hedonism  is  properly  directed  against  the 
asstimption,  common  to  hedonists  and  to  their 
opponents  alike,  that  feeling  is  a  detachable 
concrete  psychical  state.  But  feeling,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  an  abstraction.  It  is  never  wholly  free 
from  certain  elements  of  intellection  and  conation, 
and  cannot  as  a  motive  be  effectively  presented 

86 


to  the  mind  except  as  associated  with  a  sensation, 
percept,  or  idea,  or  whatever  constitutes  its  gen- 
erating function.  1  But  it  is  assumed  that  we 
are  capable  of  detaching  from  the  idea  of  a 
pleasurable  function,  as  of  the  eye  or  the  ear, 
the  idea  of  pleasure,  and  of  erecting  this  idea 
into  a  separable  end,  from  which  the  discharge 
of  the  function  may  be  distinguished  as  means. 

>  Pleasure,  we  must  remember,  is  an  abstraction,  and  only 
to  be  fotmd  in  the  concrete  complexity  of  mental  life.— -B. 
Bosanquet :  Psychology  of  the  Moral  Self,  p.  8 1 . 

On  passing  from  compound  reflex  actions  to  those  actions  so 
highly  compounded  as  to  be  imperfectly  reflex  ...  we  pass 
to  a  kind  of  mental  action  which  is  one  of  Memory,  Reason, 
Feeling,  or  Will,  according  to  the  side  of  it  we  look  at.— Her- 
bert Spencer:  Prin.  of  Psychology,  I.,  chap,  ix.,  sec.  217  (1876). 

The  impulse  is  essentially  determined  by  an  idea,  is  a 
striving  after  the  content  of  this  idea.  In  hunger,  e.g.,  the 
impulse  has  reference  primarily  to  the  food,  not  to  the  feeling 
of  pleasure  in  its  consumption.— H.  Hoffding:  Outlines  of 
Psych.,  vii.,  B,  i,  a,  p.  323  (Lowndes.) 

It  [pleasure]  is  not  something  by  itself,  which  we  can  choose 
rather  than  something  else  as  we  may  select  a  peach  instesfd 
of  an  apple.  We  must  aim  not  at  pleasure  per  se,  but  at 
objects  which  we  have  reason  to  believe  will  be  accompanied 
by  pleasurable  feeling.— W.  R.  Sorley:  Ethics  of  Naturalism, 

pp.    187,    188.  ,  T       •       ^. 

All  human  pleasure  is  pleasure  in  something.  It  is  true 
that  if  that  something  gave  no  pleasure,  we  should  not 
be  able  to  value  it;  but  still,  seeing  that  it  does  please  us, 
we  do  value  it,  and  not  simply  the  pleasure  that  it  yields.— J. 
S.  McKenzie:  Outlines  of  Metaphysics,  p.  126. 

The  springs  of  conscious  activity,  or  the  incentives  to 
volition,  are  present  or  ideally  revived  sensations  and  their 
accompaniments.— Ferrier:  Functions  of  the  Brain,  chap,  xii., 
sec.  5  (2d  ed). 


88    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

In  difiEerent  ways  one  enjoys,  for  example,  a  glass 
of  wine,  or  low  music,  or  the  invention  of  a  story 
or  of  some  mechanical  device;  and  one  can  esti- 
mate the  degree  of  enjoyment,  it  is  supposed,  as 
a  distinct  quantum,  disengaged  from  any  thought 
of  the  wine,  or  the  music,  or  the  plot  or  plan  of 
our  work.  The  actual  conscious  state,  indissoluble 
in  fact,  is  in  conception  broken  up  into  its  several 
aspects,  and  it  is  assumed  that  one  of  these  aspects, 
to  wit,  pleasure,  may  be  conceived  as  in  factual 
independence,  subjected  to  quantitative  estimate 
and  comparison,  and  set  up  as  a  separable  object 
of  volition  or  desire.  The  abstract  is  thus  dealt 
with  as  concrete.  Pleasure  is  taken  simply  as  a 
lot  or  quantimi  of  feeling,  to  be  listed  with  other 
like  lots  and  measured  by  such  standards  as  are 
conceived  to  be  applicable  to  pure  feeling.  And 
practical  wisdom  lies,  according  to  this  contention, 
in  choosing  the  most  effective  means  of  making 
over  to  one's  self  that  several  lot  of  pleasure 
which,  upon  a  fair  computation,  shows  in  biggest 

bulk. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  of  course,  that  '* pleasures," 
in  the  sense  of  pleasurable  sensations,  diversions, 
or  occupations,  may  be  dealt  with  as  wholes  more 
or  less  distinct  and  subjected  to  comparative  treat- 
ment. But  ** pleasure'*  as  mere  feeling  is  to  be 
distinguished  from  "pleasures'*  so  imderstood  as 
the  abstract  is  distinguished  from  the  concrete ; 
and  the  error  lies  in  assuming  that  the  bare  idea 


Pleasure  as  an  Organising  Principle    89 

of  pleasure  constitutes  in  deliberative  choice  the 
true  volitional  idea.  The  bare  idea  of  this  feeling, 
as  we  may  be  convinced  by  inspection,  does  not 
exist,  and  neither  feeling  nor  the  idea  of  feeling 
can  be  called  up  independently  of  any  idea  of  the 
object  or  experience  which  gives  rise  to  the  feeling ; 
much  less  can  it  fiarnish  an  incentive  to  volitional 
action.  And  this  is  equally  true  whether  we  are 
speaking  of  revived  or  anticipated  feeling.  To 
awaken  one's  pleasure  in  a  flower  one  must  recall 
in  idea  the  characters  of  the  flower,  its  colour, 
its  fragrance,  its  form.  One  does  not  revive  the 
feeling  first,  or  independently  of  the  impressions 
by  which  the  feeling  was  originally  evoked ;  the 
idea  of  these  impressions  must  first  be  revived, 
and  the  feeling  returns  as  a  fresh  product  of  such 
ideation.  So  we  may  explain  the  force  of  mere 
words.  Language  as  the  common  vehicle  of  ideas 
becomes  the  common  vehicle  of  feeling,  and  the 
medium  through  which  orator,  dramatist,  and 
poet  touch  the  sentiments  and  play  upon  the 
passions  of  mankind.* 

»  It  is  impossible  to  attend  to  pleasantness-unpleasantness 
as  such.  ...  It  is  impossible  to  voluntarily  recall  a  past  afifec- 
tive  state  as  such.  .  .  .  Spontaneous  revival  of  a  past  affective 
state  as  such  is  also  impossible.  Where  this  purports  to  have 
taken  place,  external  (associational)  suggestion  has  repro- 
duced the  ideational  substrate  of  the  state  in  question. — E.  B. 
Titchener:  Philosophical  Rev.,  Jan.,  1895. 

In  the  same  article  Titchener  cites  Lehmann  in  Haupt- 
gesetze  des   Menschlichen   Gefuhlslebens,  p.  262,    as    follows: 


90    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

But  though  the  will  must  be  directed  by  the 
idea  of  an  end,  ends  may  be  more  or  less  definite. 
They  may  indeed  be  extremely  vague,  but  if 
the  idea  is  indefinite  the  activities  initiated  by  the 
idea  will  be  ill-organised  or  indefinite.  And  ends 
may  be  grouped,  that  is,  may  be  more  or  less  gen- 
eral. Under  the  idea  of  ** wealth,"  for  instance, 
we  may  symbolise  the  ends  which  we  desire  and 
conceive  to  be  attainable  through  wealth.  So 
we  may  group  loosely  under  the  general  term 
**  pleasure"  the  particular  class  of  pleasures  to 
which  we  are  prone.  But  the  volitional  idea  in 
such  case,  however  we  may  generalise,  is  not  the 
mere  abstract  idea  of  pleasure,  but  an  idea  more 
or  less  definable  of  the  pursuits  or  functions  in 
which  pleasure  inheres.  A  volition  is  never 
simply  the  will  to  be  pleased.  As  a  practical 
function  it  is  the  will  to  have  or  to  do  or  to  ex- 
perience some  certain  thing  which  shall  satisfy 
or  please.  1 

"Gefahlstone  konnen  dadurch  reprodtiziert  werden,  dass  die 
Vorstellungen,  mit  welchen  sie  verbunden  gewesen  sind, 
wiedererzeugt  werden." 

The  necessity  of  an  objective  principle,  or  norm,  is  ftirther 
suggested  by  the  fact  that  one  is  totally  unable  to  produce 
directly  any  desired  sensibility  mode.  By  an  act  of  will, 
one  cannot  inaugurate  immediately  a  feeling  of  satisfaction 
of  any  kind  whatever.— Walter  G.  Everett:  The  Concept  of 
the  Good;  Philos.  Rev.,  Sept.,  1898. 

»  Movements  are  really  willed  only  when  they  are  made 
with  a  definite  intention  and  directed  to  a  definite  end. — H. 
Hoffding:  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  320  (Lowndes). 


Pleasure  as  an  Organising  Principle    9^ 

It  woiild  seem,  then,  that  the  primary  source 
of  feeling  lies  in  the  sensation  or  the  idea,  or  in 
some  function  to  which  the  psycho-physical 
system  must  react  in  order  that  feeling  may  be 
generated.  And  yet  it  often  happens,  apparently, 
that  the  idea  follows  the  feeling.  As  we  feel, 
grave  or  gay,  so  we  think;  and  the  character  of 
our  thoughts  seems  to  depend  generally  upon 
the  exaltation  or  the  depression  of  otir  spirits. 
The  dyspeptic  habit,  for  instance,  which  is  marked 
by  painful  organic  sensations,  is  no  less  distinctly 
marked  by  the  painful  tone  of  the  dyspeptic's 
ideas.  In  fact,  we  have  all  felt  the  effect  of  a 
dominant  mood  in  restricting  the  range  of  ideas 
to  such  as  accord  with  the  mood.  With  the 
system  tempered  to  a  certain  emotional  tone 
we  seem  to  be  more  or  less  impervious  to  ideas  of  a 
different  tone.  The  feeling  appears  to  react  on 
the  ideational  sources  of  feeling. 

This  reaction  depends  doubtless  on  the  inhib- 
itory force  of  the  expressive  and  motor  accom- 
paniments of  feeling.  Expression  in  any  emotional 
key  naturally  inhibits  the  expression  of  any  incon- 
gruous feeling,  and  through  this  inhibition  sup- 
presses, for  the  time  being,  the  ideas  which 
must  express  themselves,  if  at  all,  through  such 
incongruous  feeling.  The  sensation,  or  the  idea 
(which  is  sometimes  called  an  internal  sensation), 
apparently  forms  with  its  affectional  and  motor 
reactions   a  psycho-physical  tmit.    Obstruct  the 


92    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

reaction  and  you  obstruct  the  whole  function.* 
Dam  the  outlet  and  you  stop  the  current.  And 
you  may  obstruct  a  function  by  action  incom- 
patible with  its  discharge  even  more  effectively 
than  by  a  direct  effort  to  repress  it.  2  Freedom 
in  one  direction  is  inhibition  in  another.  The 
emotional  expression  of  the  dyspeptic's  painful 
sensations  inhibits  the  antagonistic  expression, 
and  therewith  the  conception,  of  pleasurable  ideas. 
While,  therefore,  we  may  regard  feeling  as  in 
direct  relation  with  the  idea  upon  which  it  attends, 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  only  indirectly 
related  to  the  idea  which  it  seems  to  suggest. 
The  direct  course  of  suggestion  is  from  idea  to 
idea.  3    And  to  inspire  or  to  revive  a  particular 

»  Empfindungen  .  .  .  sind  lebhaft  iind  eindringlich,  wenn 
die  Entladtmgsbahn  der  sensorischen  Erregung  in  dem 
subkortikalen  motorischen  Centrum,  zu  dem  sie  fiihrt,  keinen 
Widerstand  findet.  Die  Empfindung  anderseits  ist  gehemmt, 
wenn  die  Entladungsbahn  der  sensorischen  Erregung  zu 
einem  subkortikalen  motorischen  Centrum  ftthrt,  welches 
wegen  der  gleichzeitig  ablaufenden  Erregung  des  antagonist- 
ischen  Centrums  selber  gehemmt  ist  und  so  der  Entladung 
Widerstand  entgegensetzt. — Hugo  MUnsterberg:  Grundzuge 
der  Psychologies  Band  i,  S.  536-537. 

2 II  semble  done,  si  on  fait  I'hypoth^se  que  la  dur^e  de 
prononciation  donne  une  mesure  de  la  facility  de  prononcia- 
tion,  qu*il  est  plus  facile  de  remplacer  un  ^tat  moteur  d'articu- 
lation  par  un  autre  ^tat  que  de  supprimer  compldtement  cet 
^tat  moteur. — Binet  et  Henri:  Rev.  Philos.,  1894,  xxxvii., 
p.  614. 

»  The  combination  of  ideas  seems  therefore  to  be  the 
channel  through  which  the  feelings  mingle  with  one  another. 
.  .  .  Every  idea  has,  indeed,  its 'special  feeling,  but  this  alwa3rs 


Pleasure  as  an  Organising  Principle    93 

feeling  we  must  first  reach  the  source  of  the 
feeling  in  the  idea  or  functional  act  upon  which 
the  feeling  depends. 

Pleasure,  we  conclude  then,  or  happiness,  can- 
not as  mere  feeling  be  made  the  end  of  volitional 
action,  and  cannot,  therefore,  serve  as  the  basis 
of  a  system  which  undertakes  the  control  of  vo- 
litional conduct.  The  structure  of  the  conscious 
organism  is  such  that  the  bare  idea  of  feeling, 
if  such  a  thing  exists,  cannot  in  itself  constitute 
an  end.  In  fact,  were  a  desired  feeling  present, 
and  were  the  attempt  made  to  direct  attention  to 
the  feeling  alone  with  a  view  to  prolonging  its 
presence,  the  effort  would  initiate  a  new  fimctional 
process,  the  original  feeling  would  be  dissipated, 
and  a  different  aff ectional  state  would  be  induced. 
Hence  the  apparent  paradox  that  pleasure  the 
sooner  arrives  the  less  it  is  thought  of,  that  happi- 
ness the  more  surely  eludes  us  the  more  intently, 
as  happiness,  it  is  pursued.  Pleasure,  in  a  word,' 
attests  the  normal  discharge  of  a  ftmction,  and, 
evadit^  direct  pursuit,  demands  that  our  thoughts 
and  energies  be  directed  to  the  ftmction  which 
generates  it.  Activities,  not  feelings,  are  the 
direct  objects  of  the  wilL 

breaks  its  force  on  the  feeling  previously  prevailing,  and  its 
effect  is  determined  through  the  latter.  .  .  .  Feelings  are 
remembered  by  means  of  the  ideas  with  which  they  were 
originally  linked,  and  in  conjunction  with  which  they  com- 
posed a  certain  conscious  state.— H.  Hoffding:  Outlines  of 
Psychology,  pp.  240,  241  (Lowndes*  tr.). 


94    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

If,  therefore,  happiness  is  made  an  object  of 
desire,  it  must  be  conceived  in  such  a  sense  that 
it  does  not  impose  on  me  the  lifelong  task  of 
watching  my  subjective  symptoms,  with  my 
finger  for  ever  on  the  pulse  of  feeling.  It  must 
be  conceived  only  as  a  product  of  the  various 
activities  of  the  subject.  And  this  is  doubtless 
the  interpretation  which  in  practice  the  hedonist 
puts  upon  his  theory.  But  the  effect  of  ordinary 
hedonistic  teaching  is  to  give  a  false  tendency 
to  the  thought  by  directing  it  too  exclusively 
to  the  merely  affectional  aspect  of  conduct.  Hence 
the  strength  of  the  critic's  position  who  insists  that 
hedonism  is  philosophically  unsound,  and  that 
the  idea  of  happiness  is  an  idea  which  it  were 
best  to  banish  from  our  minds.  The  constant 
effort  to  gauge  the  emotional  value  of  life  reduces 
the  effectiveness  of  the  very  activities  upon  which 
this  emotional  value  depends. 

But  we  cannot  asstmie,  as  the  critic  of  hedonism 
is  wont  to  asstmie,  that  principles  of  conduct  may 
be  framed  apart  from  any  consideration  of  feeling. 
Ends  we  must  have.  A  man  must  have  some 
intelligible  notion  of  what  he  means  to  do,  or  of 
the  ends  to  which  his  energies  shall  be  directed. 
But  how  shall  he  choose  an  end  to  which  he  is 
indifferent  ?  We  aim  at  an  end  because  it  interests 
us,  and  interest  is  but  feeling  centred  in  a  definite 
object.  It  is  feeling,  that  is,  the  emotional  tone 
or  accompaniment  of  our  activities,  which  gives  life 


Pleasure  as  an  Organising  Principle    95 

its  value,  and  any  organising  principle  which  shall 
ensure  for  life  its  maximum  value  must  be  framed, 
of  necessity,  with  ultimate  reference  to  feeling. 
Such,  at  least,  is  our  contention.  Though  it  is 
impracticable  to  constitute  an  end  of  the  abstract 
idea  of  feeling,  life  for  the  conscious  subject  has 
in  it  nothing  that  he  should  desire  it  except  as 
attested  by  feeling.  That  it  interests  him  means 
that  it  offers  him  ends  or  objects  in  seeking  which 
he  takes  satisfaction  or  pleasure ;  and  it  interests 
him  most,  or  is  most  desirable,  when  the  pleasure 
or  satisfaction  is  most  complete. 


.    HI 


Comparison  of  **  Pleasures 


»> 


97 


CHAPTER  IX 

COMPARISON  AND   ESTIMATE    OF    PLEASURABLE 

FUNCTIONS 

INASMUCH,  then,  as  our  interest  in  an  object 
or  end  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  preference, 
the  mere  idea  of  an  object,  without  affectional 
tone,  were  as  powerless  to  influence  choice  as  were 
the  abstract  idea  of  feeling.  An  end  must  in  some 
sense  interest  us,  or  promise  some  sort  of  satis- 
faction, or  it  can  submit  no  claim  for  volitional 
preference:  wanting  the  elements  of  value,  it 
leaves  us  indifferent,  that  is,  without  incentive 
to  choice. 

Not  that  choice  proper,  involving  a  comparison 
of  values,  must  precede  every  conscious  act.  The 
tendency  of  thought  is  always  to  act  itself  out.^ 
The  idea  is  the  initial  stage  of  the  act.  And  the 
mere  observation  or  intimation  of  an  act,  sug- 
gesting the  thought  of  it,  suggests  the  act  also, 
that  is,  initiates  the  movements  which,  if  not 
inhibited  by  acts  or  ideas  incompatible  with  their 
continuance,  will  advance  to  their  consummation 

«  The  tendency  of  an  idea  to  become  the  reality  is  a  distinct 
source  of  active  impulses  in  the  mind. — ^A.  Bain:  The  Senses 
and  the  Intellect,  p.  341.     (London,  1868,  3d  ed.) 


in  the  act  suggested.  ^  Hence  perhaps  the  tendency 
to  imitate  which  we  find  in  the  young.  They  have 
as  yet  no  controlling  interest,  their  powers  have 
not  as  yet  been  disciplined  to  the  service  of  special 
ends  or  ideas,  and  out  of  the  abtmdance  of  their 
energy  they  are  ready  to  act  upon  the  presentation 
of  any  idea  which  they  are  able  to  grasp  and  exe- 
cute. And  even  acts  originally  requiring  volitional 
direction  and  choice  tend  by  repetition  to  ap- 
proach the  instinctive  type.  The  feet  of  the 
practised  dancer  start  involuntarily  with  the  open- 
ing strains  of  a  waltz. 

But  there  is  in  such  suggested  or  impulsive 
action  no  deliberation,  no  appraisement  of  in- 
terests, no  conscious  appeal  to  any  standard  of 
values.  Here  therefore  the  principle  of  conscious 
choice  is  not  involved.  Or  if  it  is  urged  that  we 
still  must  choose,  if  only  as  between  action  and 
inaction,  we  may  trace  the  affectional  element 
even  here  as  influencing  the  choice.  There' 
remains  the  interest  of  an  active  nature  seeking 
satisfaction  in  the  mere  exercise  of  power. 

But  the  contention  that  choice  is  influenced 
by  feeling  is  met  by  the  objection  that  feeling, 
as  a  psychological  fact,  follows  both  the  choice 

«  We  may  then  lay  it  down  for  certain  that  every  repre- 
sentation of  a  movement  awakens  in  some  degree  the  actual 
movement  which  is  its  object;  and  awakens  it  in  a  maximum 
degree  whenever  it  is  not  kept  from  so  doing  by  an  antago- 
nistic representation  present  simultaneously  to  the  mind. 
— W.  James:  Psychology,  vol.  ii.,  p.  526. 

7 


» 


',  < 


(   I 


98     Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

and  the  act.  And  how,  it  is  asked,  can  the 
feeling  to  be  generated  in  the  attainment  of  an 
end  not  yet  accomplished  affect  in  advance  of 
its  own  appearance  my  choice  of  such  an  end? 
How  can  future  pleasure,  in  other  words,  operate 
as  a  present  motive?  ^ 

Plainly  feeling  (or  its  physical  concomitant) 
not  yet  existent  cannot  be  the  cause  of  acts  which 
are  now  to  be  performed.  Such  a  cause  would 
be  ** final'*  in  the  most  objectional  sense.  But 
no  such  retroactive  causation  need  be  assumed. 
Though  the  end  and  its  attendant  feeling  lie  yet 
in  the  future,  the  idea  of  the  end  with  its 
emotional  tone  is  a  present  fact.  And  the  idea 
is  a  process,  not  an  inert  image  lodged,  as  it  were, 
in  the  mind;  it  is  a  process  too  which,  as  common 
observation  attests,  may  initiate  present  feeling. 
The  prospect  of  a  pleasing  experience  is  itself 
and  at  the  moment  pleasing.  But  careful  intro- 
spection seems  to  disclose  that  it  is  not  feeling  as  a 
present  fact,  but  the  idea  of  a  situation  with 
future  possibilities  of  feeling,  which  governs 
the  choice  and  initiates  action  subservient  to  the 
end  selected.  In  other  words,  it  is  not  the  pleasure 
of  the  idea,  but  the  idea  of  the  pleasure,  that  is, 


»  Even  when  we  are  acting  with  a  direct  view  to  our  own 
future  pleasure,  it  is,  of  course,  the  present  pleasure  at- 
tached to  the  idea  of  our  future  pleasure,  not  the  future 
pleasure  itself,  which  determines  our  action. — Dr.  Ernest 
Albee:  Pbilos.  Review,  July,  1897,  p.  344- 


Comparison  of  "  Pleasures  99 

of  the  pleasurable  function,  which  operates  as  a 
motive  in  volitional  choice. 

But  the  whole  subject-matter  is  obscured  by 
our  habit  of  interpreting  psychical  terms  in  a 
physical  sense.    We  treat  the  feeling  to  which 
we  ascribe  the  force  of  a  motive  as  m  effect  a 
physical  motor,   an   actual   and  present  force, 
which  is  assumed  to  be  necessary  to  impel  the 
inert  mass  of  the  idea,  itself  conceived  in  a  physi- 
cal sense,  to  its  consummation  in  act.»    But  this 
application  of  mechanical  concepts  to  psycho- 
physical experience  is  misleading.     The  human 
organism  is  not  a  mechanical  system.    It  is  mdeed 
a  storehouse  of  energy,  and  as  such  is  subject  to 
the  laws  which  govern  the  transformations  of 
energy     Force  exerted  is  force  transmuted  m  a 
definite  ratio  of  equivalence.     But  the  human 
system  is  a  highly  organised  system,  and  it  is 
organised,  as  we  have  seen,  in  accordance  with  a 
scheme  which  places  the  key  to  its  volitional, 
activities  in  the  idea.    Volitional  choice  is  a  choice 
of  ideas.      But   as  the  worth  of  experience  is 
measured  in  terms  of  feeling,  the  choice  falls, 
so  far  as  it  is  deliberately  rather  than  refle^y 
or  instinctively  determined,  on  the  idea  of  the 
object  or  end  which  is  deemed  likely  to  prove 

.  Pleasure  is  the  mechanism  or  dynamic  of  choice.  The 
enerev  or  moving  power  of  an  idea  lies  in  the  feelmg  which 
tr^u^.  Jamis  Seth:  Is  Pleasure  the  Summum  Bonumf 
Intern.  Jour,  of  Ethics.  July,  1896. 


loo  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

most  satisfactory  or  pleasing.*  And  if,  tracing 
the  process  on  its  physical  side,  the  cause  as 
a  cerebral  discharge  seems  inadequate,  without 
the  reinforcement  which  is  implied  in  emotional 
excitement,  to  produce  the  effects  which  we 
see  in  muscular  action,  we  have  only  to  be 
reminded  that  the  organism  is  itself  a  seat  of 
energy-.  The  question  is  one,  not  of  the  mere 
transmission  of  force,  but  of  the  liberation  of 
forces  latent  in  the  system.  And  if  the  psycho- 
physical system  has  been  organised  to  seek  satis- 
faction through  functional  action,  we  cannot  be 
surprised  that  the  idea  of  that  which  will  satisfy 
should  be  the  index  of  cerebral  changes  adequate 
without  further  excitation  to  engage  the  activity 
of  the  whole  motor  system. 2 

But  if,  in  order  to  determine  the  choice,  ends 
must  be  compared  in  idea  with  respect  to  their 
affectional  values,  what  method  shall  we  follow  in 


>  Volition  proper  is  characterised  psychologically  by  the 
ideas  of  the  end  of  the  action  and  the  means  to  its  realisation, 
and  by  a  vivid  feeling  of  the  worth  of  that  end. — H.  HOffding: 
Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  313  (Lowndes). 

*  It  is  a  property  of  our  intellectual  nature,  that  for  all 
purposes  of  action  the  remembrance,  notion,  or  anticipation 
of  a  feeling,  can  operate  in  essentially  the  same  way  as  the 
real  presence. — Alexander  Bain:  The  Emotions  and  the  Will, 
3d  ed.,  p.  354.     (Appleton,  1876.) 

Consciousness  is  in  its  very  nature  impulsive.  We  do  not 
have  a  sensation  or  a  thought  and  then  have  to  add  some- 
thing dynamic  to  it  to  get  a  movement. — W.  James:  Psychol- 
ogy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  526. 


Comparison  of  "Pleasures" 


lOI 


the  comparison  and  determination  of  thesevalues? 
What  do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  one  thing  is 
more  pleasing,  or  gives  us  more  pleasure  than 
another?  Is  the  estimate  quantitative?  Can 
pleasures  be  computed  in  units  of  pleasure,  or 
are  they  only  qualitatively  appreciated  and  pre- 
ferred? ,  ,.,  .4. 
If  we  refer  to  the  language  of  common  lite,  it 

would  seem  that  pleasures  are  compared  m 
respect  of  both  quantity  and  quality  There  is 
no  doubt,  in  the  first  place,  that  we  distmguish 
them  in  respect  of  quality.  We  compare,  for 
instance,  the  pleasures  of  golf,  of  study,  of  «)ciety, 
of  philanthropic  activity  and  self-sacnfice.  m 
terms  which  imply  that  the  pleasures  so  dis- 
tinguished are  different  m  kind.  So  also  with 
pains     There  are  the  pains  of  hunger,  of  weariness, 

of  disappointed  ambition,  of  thwarted  love.^ 

In  the  form  in  which  it  first  invades  conscious- 
ness the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  of  pain,  so  far  as  we 
can  consider  it  by  itself,  seems  to  be  a  mode  of 
sensibility  which  reports  the  inner  or  organic 
significance,  as  the  special  senses  report  the  ex- 
ternal or  objective  significance,  of  any  given 
impression  or  experience.  And  in  its  initial  stage 
the  feeling  seems  to  share  something  of  the  dis- 
tinctions in  quality  or  mode  which  mark  the 
various  functions  with  which  it  is  associated. 
That  is,  it  is  qualitatively  defined  by  the  gen- 
erating function.    The  pleasures  of  sense  differ 


I02   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

in  quality  from  one  another,  and  from  the  pleasures 
of  action;  and  all  these  differ,  again,  from  the 
pleasures  of  the  creative  imagination  or  of  specu- 
lative thought.  The  differences  in  the  mode  of  the 
functional  act  are  carried  over  to  the  immediate 
affective  state,  the  feeling  by  first  intention,  so 
to  speak,  which  is  continuous  with  the  functional 
act,  and  are  thus  felt  to  be  inherent  in  the  feeling.* 
To  resolve  away  these  differences  we  must  ad- 
dress ourselves  to  feeling  in  the  abstract,  and 
psychologists  who  assume  to  deal  with  pure  feeling 
find  in  it  no  differences  of  quality  other  than  the 
difference  between  pleasure  and  pain.^  And  for 
th3  purpose  of  psychological  analysis  such  a 
conception  of  feeling  may  have  its  uses.  But  in 
ethics,   which  bears  directly  upon   conduct  or 

>  The  quality  or  character  of  what  is  generally  called  a 
feeling  or  emotion  comes  from  the  sensations  or  cognitions 
that  go  with  it. — B.  Bosanquet:  Psychology  of  the  Moral 
Self,  p.  63.     (London,  1897.) 

2  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  qualitative  difference 
discoverable  between  the  pleasantness  of  a  colour  and  that 
of  a  successfully  concluded  argument,  when  careful  ab- 
straction is  made  from  the  very  wide  differences  in  all  their 
attendant  circumstances. — Ktilpe:  Outlines  of  Psychology, 
sec.  35,  I.  .  .  .  We  are  left  with  the  simple  qualities  of 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness,  which  refuse  to  admit  of 
further  subdivision. — lb.,  sec.  35,  3. 

It  seems  to  be  true  of  pleasure  as  of  pain,  that  in  itself 
it  exhibits  no  differences  of  kind,  but  that  the  differences 
in  the  pleasurable  feelings  spring  out  of  the  sensations  or 
ideas  accompanying  them. — H.  HOffding:  Outlines  of  Psy- 
chology, p.  224  (Lowndes). 


Comparison  of  *•  Pleasures         103 

practice,  our  conscious  states  must  be  dealt  with 
more  concretely.  The  pleasurable  or  painful 
state  must,  for  the  purpose  of  choice,  be  taken  as 
a  whole,  including  function,  feeling,  and,  we  may 
add,  the  expression  or  consummation  of  the 
affective  state,  which,  is  in  fact,  but  a  single  state 
however  we  may  distinguish  its  phases  or  aspects. 
For  us,  in  other  words,  ''pleasures'*  differ  in 
quality  or  kind.  And  even  psychologists  are  to 
be  found  who  take  the  same  view.* 

But  the  affectional  state,  even  in  its  initial 
phase,  may  vary  in  intensity.  One  colour,  or  one 
shade  of  colour,  may  yield  a  stronger  sense  of  satis- 
faction  than  another ;  or  a  musician  may  feel  that 
the  pleasure  which  he  derives  from  the  harmonies 
of  sotind  is  more  intense  than  that  which  he  takes 
in  the  harmonies  of  colour.  Such  variations, 
involving  a  question  of  degree,  are  so  far  quanti- 
tative. And  they  are,  in  fact,  such  as  we  might 
expect  from  the  nature  of  feeling  as  the  exponent 
of  a  more  or  less  diffusive  reaction  of  the  organism 
to  the  changing  phases  of  its  experience.  The 
intimate  nature  of  the  reaction,  as  we  have  said, 

«  The  variety  of  simple  affective  qualities  seems  to  be 
indefinitely  great.— W.  Wundt:  Outlines  of  Psychology,  2d 
Eng.  ed.,  p.  90  (Judd's  tr.). 

The  countless  feelings  that  thrill  the  human  heart,  envy, 
anger,  ambition,  love,  etc.,  are  obviously  different  in  quality. 
It  would  be  doing  violence  to  the  facts  to  force  all  these 
emotions  into  the  two  classes,  feelings  of  pleasure  and  feelings 
of  pain.— Th.  Ziehn:  Intr.  to  Phys.  Psychology,  p.  178  (Van 
Liew  and  Beyer). 


I04  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

has  not  been  explored.  But  it  appears,  under 
inspection,  to  be  a  continuation  of  the  initial 
impression,  invading  the  organism  in  varying 
degrees  of  energy  and  completeness.  The  affec- 
tive reaction  shows,  accordingly,  with  reference 
to  the  nervous  system  at  large,  a  certain  volume 
and  strength,  which  are  reported  in  consciousness 
as  the  voltime  and  strength  of  the  feeling,  and 
may  be  made  the  subject  of  comparative  estimate. 
A  sharp  pinch  of  the  ear,  for  example,  has  little 
more  than  local  significance,  while  an  incision 
made  by  a  surgeon's  knife  may  check  respiration,  or 
produce  nervous  shock,  or  so  affect  cerebral  action 
as  to  suspend  consciousness.  In  such  reactions, 
considered  in  their  merely  physical  aspect,  there 
is  a  marked  difference  of  intensity  and  scope;  and 
if  feeling  may  be  defined  as  the  sense  of  such 
physical  reactions,^  the  energy  and  extent  of 
the  reaction  may  well  be  represented  by  what 
we  call  the  intensity  and  breadth  of  the  feeling. 
That  is,  feeling,  even  in  its  initial  phase,  may  show 
quantitative  as  well  as  qualitative  differences. 

And  the  quantitative  differences  are  still  more 
apparent  in  the  later  phases  of  feeling.  The 
feeling  of  first  contact  or  intention  tends  in  its 
development  to  merge  in  the  consciousness  of 

«  My  theory  ...  is  that  the  bodily  changes  follow  directly 
the  perception  of  the  exciting  fact,  and  that  our  feeling 
of  the  same  changes  as  they  occur  is  the  emotion. — W. 
James:  Prtn.  of  Psych.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  449- 


Comparison  of  **  Pleasures         105 

the  motor  resultant.  We  impute  then  to  the 
feeling  something  of  the  scope  and  energy  of  the 
act.  The  vigour  with  which  one  springs  from  a 
rattlesnake's  coil  seems  to  increase  one's  terror 
of  its  fangs.  The  strain  of  the  struggle  for  a 
coveted  prize  intensifies  the  feeling  with  which 
one  advances  or  falls  behind  in  the  struggle.  There 
may  be  something  of  illusion  here.  We  may 
impute  to  one  process  the  energy  of  another 
which  should  be  distinguished  from  it.  But  the 
relation  between  feeling  and  the  action  to  which 
it  prompts  is  in  any  case  extremely  close.  ^  It  has 
even  been  maintained  that  the  sensory  impression 
itself  depends  for  its  worth  and  vividness  upon  the 
scope  and  energy  of  the  discharge  or  motor  re- 
sponse.2    And  feeling,  it  should  seem,  as  connect- 

»  WoUen  wir  naher  beschreiben,  was  wir  denn  bei  Lust  und 
Unlust  in  tms  empfinden,  so  wissen  wir  dies  nicht  anschaulicher 
zu  thun,  als  indem  wir  die  Lust  als  ein  Streben  nach  dem 
Gegenstande  hin,  die  Unlust  als  ein  Widerstreben  gegen 
denselben  bezeichnen.  Nur  darum  aber  fliessen  in  unserer 
Schilderung  die  Namen  der  Gefahle,  der  Triebe  und 
Willensbestimmungen  fortwahrend  in  einander,  weil  diese 
Zustande  in  der  Wirklichkeit  immer  verbunden  sind  und 
durch  die  psychologische  Abstraction  nur  insofern  getrennt 
werden  kOnnen,  als  die  Apperception  gegenfiber  den  aus- 
seren  Eindrttcken  bald  ein  passives  bald  ein  actives  Verhalten 
darbietet:  im  ersten  Fall  reden  wir  dann  vorzugsweise  von 
Gefahl,  im  zweiten  von  Trieb,  Begehren  oder  Wollen.— W. 
Wundt:  Grundz.  der  Phys.  Psychologies  vol.  i,  p.  535,(1^87). 

»  Jedes  Element  des  Bewusstseinsinhaltes  dem  Ubergang 
von  Erregung  zu  Entladung  im  Rindengebiet  zugeordnet 
ist  und  zwar  derart,  dass  die  Qualitat  der  Empfindung  von 
der  raumlichen  Lage  der  Erregungsbahn,  die  Intensitat  der 


io6  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

ing  the  limiting  aspects,  sensation  and  conation, 
of  a  given  conscious  event,  must  be  intimately 
related  to  both,  sharing  the  quality  of  the  sen- 
sation, peripheral  or  central,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
something  which  represents  the  energy  of  the 
reaction  on  the  other.  And  if  this  view  is  per- 
missible, if  sensation,  feeling,  and  impulsion  are 
but  various  aspects  of  one  indivisible  event,  no 
aspect  of  which  is  what  it  is  without  implication 
of  the  others,  we  cannot  but  conclude  that  differ- 
ences in  feeling  are  susceptible  of  both  qualitative 
and  quantitative  expression.  Pleasures  may  dif- 
fer, at  least  for  the  purposes  of  practical  choice, 
both  in  degree  and  in  kind.^ 

But  while  pleasures  differ  in  degree,  as  all  will 
allow,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  may  be  sub- 
jected to  precise  mathematical  treatment.  For 
a  given  individual  the  strength  of  a  feeling  may 
be  roughly  gauged  perhaps  by  the  strength  of  its 
motor  expression,  but  there  is  no  affectional  imit 
which  can  be  generally  applied  even  to  the  feelings 
of  the  same  individual.  And  in  practice  there  need 
not  be.  At  least  we  make  shift  to  do  without  it. 
We  are  content  if  differences  in  quantity  or 
quality,  or  in  both,  enable  us  to  establish  some- 

Empfindung  von  der  Starke  der  Erregung,  die  Wertnuance 
der  Empfindung  von  der  raumlichen  Lage  der  Entladungs- 
bahn  und  die  Lebhaftigkeit  der  Empfindung  von  der  Starke 
der  Entladung  abhangt.— H.  MOnsterberg:  Grundz,  der 
Psychologies  vol.  i.,  p.  548-9. 

»  J.  S.  Mill:  Utilitarianism,  chap.  ii. 


Comparison  of  **  Pleasures         107 

thing  like  an  order  of  preference.    This  is  per- 
haps all  we  ever  attempt  to  do,  and  even  this  is 
not  always  possible.    And  much  has  been  made  of 
this  difficulty.    It  perplexes  us  indeed  at  every 
turn  of  life.    But  the  differences  on  which  our 
common    ethical   distinctions   are   founded   are 
for  the  most  part  too  palpable  to  be  missed.    Man's 
moral  struggle  is  a  struggle  to  escape  ruinous  and 
imminent  disaster  rather  than  an  effort  to  follow 
subtle  distinctions  where  only  refined  observation 
can  detect  a  difference.     The  difficulty  of  apply- 
ing to  our  conduct  an  order  of  preference  based 
on  affectional  differences  is  therefore  by  no  means 
fatal.    A  greater  difficulty,  if  we  give  due  regard 
to  the  functional  origin  of  feeling,  is  to  find  any 
other  basis. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  GENERAL  OR  RATIONALISED  VOLITIONAL  END 

WHAT  we  regard  as  the  general  volitional 
end  is  now  perhaps  clear.  It  may  be 
summarised  as  the  reduction  of  the  several  con- 
scious activities  to  a  rational  and  organised 
unity  based  on  the  principle  of  conscious  choice. 

This  principle,  as  we  have  seen,  prompts  us  in 
any  given  case  to  seek  the  fullest  satisfaction 
for  the  volitional  impulse.  But  our  impulses 
conflict  and  cannot  all  be  gratified.  And  even 
were  there  no  internal  conflict  the  conditions  of 
life  would  compel  us  to  forego  much  that  we  might 
be  impelled  to  seek.  Hence  in  order  to  become 
a  rational  principle,  the  principle  of  choice  must 
be  construed  with  reference  to  the  conscious  life 
and  its  environment  as  a  whole.  In  other  words, 
it  must  be  applied  in  the  direction  of  our  energies 
to  such  particular  ends  as  offer  on  the  whole, 
in  the  character  and  completeness  of  our  functional 
activity,  the  completest  satisfaction  of  our  voli- 
tional demands  which  the  conditions  of  life  allow. 

Such  a  statement  of  the  supreme  volitional 
end  is  of  course  merely  formal  in  its  terms.    The 

io8 


The  General  Volitional  End       109 


content  must  be  filled  in  from  experience,  general 
and  individual,  of  the  forms  of  activity  which 
satisfy.  And  we  cannot,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  conceive  of  this  end  as  involving  any  attain- 
ment or  possession  which  may  be  regarded  as  the 
final  consummation  of  our  ends.  The  volitional 
life  is  an  organising  process  to  which  we  can  assign 
no  fixed  closure  until  death  arrests  the  process. 
The  end  is  progressive.  In  fact,  in  defining  the 
end  of  the  conscious  life  we  have  done  no  more  than 
define  the  direction  of  its  activities  or  the  true  law 
of  its  development. 

And  this  law  may  properly  be  called  a  natural 
law.  It  is  not  indeed,  like  the  laws  of  which  we 
speak  in  the  sciences  of  observation,  a  generalised 
statement  of  what  actually  happens.  It  is  a 
norm  or  a  merely  directive  law.  But  it  is  foxmded 
upon  a  basic  fact  of  our  nature,  upon  the  fact, 
namely,  that  each  impulsion,  so  far  as  it  is  free 
from  interference  by  a  rival,  seeks  full  satisfaction. 
It  is  therefore  implicate  in  the  nature  of  the 
conscious  life.  And  it  would  be  the  actual  law 
if  the  conscious  organism  as  a  whole  were  com- 
pletely organised  in  accordance  with  the  principle 
which  governs  each  impulsion  as  it  severally 
takes  control  of  the  field  of  choice.  In  other 
words,  it  looks  to  the  completest  satisfaction  of 
our  nature  conceived  as  a  composite  tendency 
in  which  each  constituent  has  its  recognised  place. 
lU  is  natural  therefore  in  the  pregnant  sense  that 


no   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

it  applies  to  the  whole  rather  than  to  any  mere 
part  of  our  nature.  Through  it  our  whole  nature 
tends  to  arrive  at  completest  expression. 

And  while  the  law  is  natural  in  this  broad  sense 
we  are  justified  in  calling  it  the  rational  law.  It 
is  a  generalised  and  rationalised  statement  of  the 
principle  which  we  all  inconsequently  and  irra- 
tionally recognise  in  practice.  We  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  calling  the  effort  to  seek  the  fullest 
satisfaction  a  rational  effort  where  there  is  but 
a  single  impulse  to  gratify.  A  thirsty  man,  for 
instance,  having  nothing  but  his  thirst  to  con- 
sider, would  hardly  escape  question  of  his  sanity 
if,  with  abtmdance  of  sweet  water  at  hand,  he 
should  refuse  to  slake  his  thirst.  He  might,  of 
course,  have  other  things  to  consider.  He  might 
fear  the  effect  of  a  too  copious  draught  on  an 
overheated  system;  or  he  might  through  his 
generous  instincts  be  moved,  like  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
by  a  fellow-man's  greater  necessity.  What  had 
been  a  simple  situation  would  then  become  com- 
plex. But  what  new  principle  could  we  apply  to 
the  more  complex  situation?  Taking  human 
nature  as  a  whole,  and  having  regard  no  less  to 
its  beneficent  or  social  element  than  to  its  so-called 
self-regarding  aspect,  we  find  no  other  principle 
which  commends  itself  to  a  reasonable  man  than 
that  which  enjoins  such  direction  of  his  activities 
as  shall  procure  for  him  the  completest  satis- 
faction on  the  whole. 


The  General  Volitional  End      m 

And  this  rational  law,  as  controlling  all  the 
impulsions  of  our  nature  in  the  same  general 
sense,  is  a  harmonising  law.  Harmony,  we  have 
seen,  is  referable  ultimately  to  some  subjective 
test.  Soimds,  for  instance,  are  most  harmonious 
whose  concord,  as  measured  by  this  test,  is  sweetest 
or  most  pleasurable.  Such  a  test  for  conscious 
experience  generally  we  find  in  the  general  sensi- 
bility to  pleasure  and  pain,  taking  these  terms 
in  their  broadest  intention.  And  by  means  of  the 
law  rationalised  from  the  results  of  this  test,  we 
are  enabled  not  only  to  modulate  discordant 
tendencies,  but  to  impart  the  greatest  value,  or,  in 
other  words,  the  richest  harmony,  to  the  general 
conscious  content  of  life. 

And,  finally,  this  natural,  rationalised,  and 
harmonising  law  may  be  regarded  as  the  true 
law  of  self-realisation  or  self-development.  The 
self  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  developed  in  many 
types,  and  as  there  are  many  existing  types 
so  there  are  many  ideals  of  the  self.  It  would 
seem,  however,  that  these  ideals  cannot  have 
all  the  same  value.  The  self  as  conceived  by 
the  barbarian  or  the  voluptuary  or  the  practical 
materialist  is  a  gross  and  shrunken  ideal  as  com- 
pared with  the  self  conceived  in  the  full  breadth 
of  its  capacity  for  life.  And  this  broader  self,  if 
what  we  have  urged  is  true,  must  be  recognised 
as  incomparably  the  more  satisfactory  self.  It 
is  the  self,  therefore,  which,  as  rational  beings 


112   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

seeking  the  fullest  satisfaction,  we  should  endea- 
vour to  realise ;  and  the  form  of  that  more  generous 
self  must  be  determined  ultimately,  as  we  contend, 
through  a  consistent  and  intelligent  application 
of  the  principle  of  conscious  choice  here  enun- 
ciated. In  this  principle,  accordingly,  we  find 
the  principle  which  the  theory  of  self-development 
requires  to  determine  that  form  of  the  self  which 
shall  insure  the  completest  self-expression. 

To  recapitulate,  then,  we  find  that  the  true  law 
of  self-development  is  identical  with  the  law  which 
guides  us,  through  functional  activity,  to  the 
completest  satisfaction  attainable  in  life  as  a 
whole.  And  this  law  is  implicate  in  each  conscious 
impulsion:  each  appetition  demands  full  satis- 
faction. Here  lies  the  natural  basis  of  the  law. 
But  the  conscious  life  is  as  yet  ill  organised. 
Our  aims  are  conflicting,  our  acts  inconsequent, 
and  the  discord  which  thus  marks  our  functional 
life  is  reflected  in  the  distractions  and  general 
low  value  of  our  feeling  or  our  affectional  life. 
Hence  the  problem  of  conduct  is  the  problem 
of  rationalising,  harmonising,  and  completing  our 
lives  by  so  controlling  our  choice  of  ends  that  the 
principle  recognised  in  the  case  of  the  particular 
appetition  shall  be  applied  to  the  conduct  as 
a  whole. 

The  consistent  application  of  this  principle, 
however,  which  in  the  mere  statement  seems  so 
simple,  is  a  task  which  our  actual  human  nature 


i 

■  i 


\ 


8 


f 


The  General  Volitional  End      113 

finds  extremely  difficult.  This  difficulty  springs, 
we  may  say,  from  two  main  causes :  the  strength  of 
the  instinctive  and  subconscious  bias,  which 
overrides  the  broader  and  saner  intention;  and 
the  restriction  of  the  view  in  volition  to  a  part 
only  of  the  field  of  conscious  choice.  The  former 
of  these  causes  is  often  reducible  to  a  case  of 
the  latter.  Anger,  lust,  and  fear,  for  instance, 
are  in  their  intensity  blind  to  everything  but  the 
objects  of  their  own  suggestion,  and  the  broader 
human  interest,  the  interest  of  the  humanised 
self  in  beneficent  and  fruitftd  association  with 
sympathetic  minds,  is  thus  shut  out  from 
recognition. 

The  field  of  view  is  limited  also  by  our  incapacity, 
even  when  we  are  unbiassed,  to  see  far  forward 
into  the  effect  of  our  acts.  None  of  us  are,  of 
course,  exempt  from  this  sort  of  restriction.  Hu- 
man affairs  are  highly  complex.  The  conse- 
quences of  what  seems  to  be  a  trivial  act  may 
be  so  wide  and  far-reaching  as  to  baffle  our  intelli- 
gence in  the  attempt  to  compute  them.  While 
therefore  we  may  have  no  doubt  as  to  the  sort 
of  actions  enjoined  on  us  by  the  principles  we 
cherish,  we  have  the  most  perplexing  doubts  as  to 
the  bearing  and  objective  character  of  a  particular 
act.  For  this  reason,  as  well  as  for  the  reason  that 
it  is  impossible  to  follow  out  in  detail  the  whole 
of  man's  conduct,  educational  effort  and  the 
force  of  opinion  are  directed  to  the  intent  rather 

8 


114  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

than  to  the  form  of  the  act,  to  the  general  dis- 
position of  the  will  rather  than  to  the  particular 
determinations  of  the  will.  In  the  midst  of  the 
confusing  problems  of  conduct  we  feel  that  the 
best  guarantee  of  a  just  solution  is  the  persistent 

desire  to  be  just. 

And  here  as  elsewhere  experience  brings  its 
lessons.  A  certain  practical  knowledge  is  acquired 
from  day  to  day  as  we  live  and  choose  and  act, 
and  this  knowledge,  though  unsystematised  or 
unscientific  in  form,  is  of  great  value  in  the  con- 
duct of  life.  And  much  may  be  learned  in  a 
lifetime.  But  the  individual  does  not  begin  with 
a  blank  sheet  or  depend  on  his  own  experience 
alone:  he  has  the  tradition  of  the  race  behind  him. 
And  as  every  disciplined  mind  starts  with  this 
tradition,  and  tends  through  its  influence  to 
correct  or  modify  or  enlarge  the  tradition,  man's 
stock  of  wisdom  is  cumulative.  We  may  hope 
that  the  world  as  it  grows  older  will  grow  a  little 

wiser. 

And  with  the  increase  of  wisdom  we  may  hope, 
too,  for  increase  of  happiness.  Happiness  as  a 
product  of  activities  not  exhausted  in  the  amassing 
of  **means,"  but  effectively  directed  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  valid  and  ultimate  ends,  is  as 
yet  rare.  We  are  for  the  most  part  engaged  in  the 
pursuit  of  provisional  aims:  our  energy  is  ex- 
pended in  merely  averting  calamity,  or  in  the 
animal    occupation   of    saving    ourselves   alive. 


The  General  Volitional  End      115 


Pain  is  our  familiar  prompter,  and  the  dread  of 
disaster  casts  a  shadow  on  our  sunniest  hours. 
Hence  the  pity  or  contempt  with  which  sage 
experience  smiles  at  youth's  dream  of  happiness, 
and  a  theory  which  in  any  sense  relates  the 
conduct  of  life  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  seems, 
like  the  hope  on  which  it  is  founded,  to  be  an 
illusion.  So  our  mentors  are  wont  to  insist. 
But  the  relative  prevalence  of  pain,  if  proven,  does 
not  affect  our  theory.  The  principle  of  conscious 
choice  remains  the  same  whatever  our  position 
as  between  the  poles  of  choice,  whether  we  are 
engaged  in  the  search  for  pleasure  or  mainly 
employed  in  the  effort  to  avoid  or  mollify  pain. 
And  the  law  of  life  generalised  from  this  principle 
remains  the  same.  It  determines  only  the  direc- 
tion of  our  efforts  and  requires  no  more  of  us  than 
to  make  the  best  of  such  conditions  as  we  find. 
Whether  we  lie  under  the  frown  of  a  sullen  fate 
or  bask  in  fortune's  smile,  melioration  is  its 
watchword:  to  mitigate  evil,  for  evil  to  substitute 
good,  for  good  to  find  a  better  good.  But  the 
good  is  relative  always  to  some  functional  demand, 
and  is  good  because  it  satisfies  this  demand. 


Necessity  of  Social  Union        117 


SECTION  IV 
The  Associative  Life  and  the  Moral  End 

CHAPTER  XI 
social  union  necessary  to  human  development 

IN  the  discussion  so  far  we  have  treated  our 
subject  generally,  taking  human  nature  as  we 
find  it,  and  giving  little  attention  to  the  conditions 
of  its  development.    There  is  one  main  condition, 
however,  which  should  be  explicitly  recognised  as 
a  condition  which  the  ethical  student  cannot 
possibly  ignore:  the  medium  in  which  the  indi-dd- 
ual  lives  and  moves.    Human  personality  is  not 
an  isolated  growth,  and  neither  human  development 
nor  the  norm  of  human  conduct  were  intelligible 
without  recognition  of  the  effect  on  the  individual 
of  communion  with  beings  like  himself.    This 
social  influence  we  have  assumed.    The  man  we 
have  all  along  had  in  mind  is  man  as  an  element 
of  human  society,  but  we  have  made  no  special 
study  of  the  nature  of  the  relation  which  the  social 
individual  holds  to  the  social  tmion.     This  relation 
we  have  now  to  consider. 

116 


We  pause,  however,  before  carrjdng  our  inquiry 
forward,  to  review  certain  conclusions  that  we 
have  reached. 

An  organism,  we  foimd,  is  the  seat  of  many 
activities  converging  to  a  common  end.  This  end 
is,  primarily,  the  conservation  of  the  individual 
in  the  discharge  of  its  functions.  Among  the 
latter  is  included  the  function  of  propagating  the 
kind ;  and  the  discharge  of  this  function  operates 
to  give  the  primary  tendency,  self -conservation, 
a  remoter  and  broader  aim,  namely,  the  con- 
servation of  the  species.  But  the  conditions  of 
life  press  so  hard  on  the  individuals  of  the  species 
that  not  all  are  able  to  resist  the  pressure.  Only 
the  fittest  survive ;  that  is,  such  individuals  alone 
as  are  most  completely  equipped  for  the  struggle 
for  existence  maintain  their  existence. 

The  appearance  of  consciousness  in  this  com- 
petitive struggle  marks  a  new  era  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  vital  series.  It  is  regarded,  in  fact,  as 
introducing  a  new  series,  that  of  animal  life.  At 
any  rate,  dating  from  the  appearance  of  con- 
sciousness, the  activities  of  the  individual  begin 
to  be  directed  to  new  ends,  giving  a  new  impulse  to 
the  development  of  the  organism  and  the  series. 
How  these  ends  are  gradually  distinguished  and 
emphasised  we  need  not  restate.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  a  great  part  of  man's  conscious  activity  is 
directed  to  ends  which  have  no  immediate  reference 
to  his  physical  well-being  at  all.     And  the  number 


H 


ii8  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

and  scope  of  such  ends  increase  as  the  conscious 
life  develops,  until  at  length  the  body  is  regarded 
as  the  mere  instrument  of  the  conscious  functions 
rather  than  as  the  reason  for  their  being. 

There  is,  however,  an  element  of  the  conscious 
life— and  from  this  point  we  proceed  with  our 
inquiry— which  marks  by  its  appearance  the 
beginning  of  still  another  series  in  the  line  of 
organic  succession.  This  is  the  element  of  social 
feeling,  or,  objectively,  the  principle  of  association, 
through  which  this  feeling  finds  expression.  As 
the  vital  series  would  have  been  arrested,  but 
for  consciousness,  at  the  vegetal  stage,  so  the 
psychic  division  of  the  series  would  have  been 
arrested,  but  for  the  principle  of  association,  at  the 
brutish  stage.  Man  owes  to  this  principle,  if  not  his 
very  existence  as  man,  all  that  is  characteristic  of 
civUised  man.  ^  From  the  momentof  itsappearance 
it  gave  a  new  impulse  to  his  development,  broad- 
ened the  sphere  of  his  action,  and  began  to  work  a 
change  in  his  character.  It  was  virtually  a  new 
principle  for  the  organisation  of  his  powers,  and  no 
man  can  set  limits  to  the  efficacy  of  this  principle. 

In  the  associative  life  the  conscious  individual, 
the  knowing  and  feeling  subject  pursuing  his 
ends,  is  still  the  ultimate  conscious  unit.  2     The 

»  Pour  rhomme  lui-m6me,  le  premier  terme  de  la  s^rie  de 
ses  succds  n'est  autre  que  sa  sociability. — Fr^d^ric  Houssay: 
Revue  Philosophique,  May,  1893,  p.  475- 

a  There  is  no  social  brain  other  than  and  separate  from  the 


Necessity  of  Social  Union        119 

principle  of  conscious  choice  remains  therefore 
valid.  But  the  sphere  of  the  individual's  interests 
is  expanded.  The  conscious  subject  tends,  in 
proportion  to  the  strength  of  his  social  feeling, 
his  intelligence,  and  his  experience  of  the  associa- 
tive life,  to  increase  in  capacity  to  grasp  with 
vividness  and  detail  the  ends  of  his  fellow-men, 
and  thus  to  make  other  men's  ends  his  own.  An 
end  does  not  engage  the  interest  of  the  social 
subject  merely  as  it  inures  to  his  personal  ad- 
vantage. It  may  become  in  a  sense  impersonal. 
An  idea  cannot,  of  course,  become  wholly  detached, 
floating  as  it  were  in  vacuo,  but  it  may  be  con- 
ceived imiversally,  that  is,  as  independent  of  the 
fortunes  of  the  thinking  subject  or  of  any  particular 
man.  A  certain  personal  interest,  however,  in 
the  universalised  idea  still  remains:  the  subject 
takes  personal  satisfaction  in  its  realisation. 
Truth,  Liberty,  Humanity,  for  example,  are  uni- 
versal ideas  the  progressive  realisation  of  which 
the  individual  may  make  his  personal  concern. 
And  his  interest  may  be  so  profound,  his  nature 
may  find  in  their  pursuit  satisfaction  so  complete, 

brain   of   individuals. — B.    Bosanquet:   Intern,   Journal   of 
Ethics,  April,  1894. 

Society  is  not  an  organism  with  a  single  centre  of  conscious- 
ness. ...  But  the  name  marks  the  essential  fact,  that 
although  at  any  time  the  properties  of  the  constituted  whole 
are  the  product  of  the  constituting  units,  those  units  have 
gained  their  properties  in  virtue  of  belonging  to  this  whole. — 
Leslie  Stephen:  Science  of  Ethics,  pp.  iii,  112. 


I20   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

that  for  their  sake  he  is  willing  to  sacrifice  his 
private  ends  and  even  his  life. 

Opportunity  for  the  expansion  of  individual 
aims,  however,  and  for  the  inner  development 
which  such  expansion  implies,  would  be  wanting 
were  there  not  in  the  associative  life  some  miti- 
gation of  the  severity  of  the  struggle  for  existence. 
And  some  mitigation  of  this  severity  is  implied 
in  the  very  being  of  society.  So  far  as  men  imite 
for  any  purpose  they  cease  to  contend.  And  such 
moderation  or  suspension  of  the  struggle  as  the  fact 
of  society  implies  limits  the  application  of  the  law 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  ^  if  by  the  fittest  we 
mean  those  who  are  best  equipped  for  the  struggle. 
Survival  of  the  fittest,  as  usually  interpreted,  pre- 
supposes continuous  conflict.     It  is  the  effect  of 

1  There  is  another  fallacy  which  appears  to  me  to  pervade 
the  so-called  "ethics  of  evolution."  It  is  the  notion  that 
because,  on  the  whole,  animals  and  plants  have  advanced 
in  perfection  of  organisation  by  means  of  the  struggle  for 
existence  and  the  consequent  "survival  of  the  fittest," 
therefore  men  in  society,  men  as  ethical  beings,  must  look 
to  the  same  process  to  help  them  towards  perfection.-— T.  H. 
Huxley:  Evolution  and  Ethics,  p.  80.  (Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1894) 

A  la  lutte  pour  I'existence  on  a  oppos6  avec  raison  I'asso- 
ciation  pour  la  vie  ...  la  grande  loi  k  laquelle  tout  nous 
famine.— F.  Paulhan:  Rev.  Philos.,  April,  1894,  p.  403. 

As  to  the  value  of  the  qualities  by  which  the  type  is  pre- 
served natural  selection  exhibits  a  fine  indifference.  .  .  .  The 
lower  type  underbids  the  higher.  ...  The  low,  miserable, 
degraded  bacillus  wages  war  with  him  [man]  on  equal  terms, 
and  in  some  places  may  be  almost  said  to  conquer  and  expel 
him.— L.  T.  Hobhouse:  Intern.  Jour,  of  Ethics,  January,  1898. 


Necessity  of  Social  Union         1 2 1 

fierce  and  uninterrupted  competition  for  means  of 
subsistence  of  which  there  is  but  a  limited  supply. 
But  social  feeling  tends  to  harmonise  or  to  identify 
ends  which  in  its  absence  would  conflict,  and  in 
the  associative  life  competition  is  replaced,  so 
far  as  the  principle  of  association  prevails,  by 
co-operation.  Room  is  thus  provided  for  freer 
play  of  the  conscious  activities.  Energy  which 
was  expended  in  securing  a  footing  upon  which 
to  maintain  the  struggle  for  physical  life  is  now 
liberated  for  the  pursuit  and  achievement  of  the 
broader  ends  of  the  conscious  life.  The  circle 
of  life's  aims  and  interests  thus  expands.  And 
with  this  expansion  goes  increase  of  capacity  to 
use  and  devise  new  instruments  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  these  aims.  Human  nature  develops.  ^ 
The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  law  of  man  merely  in  his  capacity 
of  brute.  As  a  biological  law,  moreover,  it  is  a 
mere  generalisation  of  fact.  It  simply  describes 
a  situation  prevalent  in  the  animal  world.  We 
seek  a  law  of  a  different  kind,  a  law,  or  norm, 
which  shall  enable  us  to  satisfy  most  completely 
the  demands  of  our  nature.  And  the  fact  that 
brute  nature,  red  in  tooth  and  claw,  has  fought 

«  La  civilisation  met  en  valeur  nos  aptitudes;  elle  leur 
permet  de  naJtre  en  m6me  temps  q'elle  cr^e  les  besoins  aux- 
quels  elles  r^pondront.  Les  causes  comme  les  fins  de  nos 
facult^s  sont  essentiellement  sociales. — Gustave  Belot: 
Rev.  Philos.,  February,  1892,  p.  218. 


122    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Necessity  of  Social  Union        1 23 


its  way  up  through  the  vital  scale  by  no  means 
justifies  the  presumption  that  human  nature, 
which  is  essentially  social,  can  find  its  com- 
pletest  fulfilment  through  the  adoption  of  the 
anti-social  habit  of  the  brute.  So  far  as  this 
habit  survives,  in  fact,  it  tends  to  defeat  any  hope 
of  such  fulfilment.  For  man  the  promise  of  the 
future  lies  in  what  may  be  accomplished  only 
through  the  co-operative  activity  of  the  social 

life. 

It  may  be  urged  that  any  hope  of  suppressing 
the  competitive  habit  is  baseless,  and  by  directing 
human  effort  to  an  illusory  end  can  only  do  harm  ; 
that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  as  continuous, 
as  relentless,  among  men  as  among  the  fiercest  of 
brutes ;  that  it  has  merely  changed  its  form  from  a 
physical  struggle  to  a  contest  of  wits.    The  strug- 
gle indeed  continues.     As  to  that  there  cannot 
be  the  slightest,  doubt.     And  yet  if  there  exists 
among  men  any  genuine  social  feeling,  if  there 
is  any  community  of  interests  recognised  at  all, 
we  must  admit  that  the  struggle  is  so  far  abated. 
And    the  fact  of   social  feeling  is  indisputable. 
The  sphere  of  its  influence  may  be  narrow,  much 
profession  of  such  feeling  may  be  hollow,  and  we 
may  deceive  even  ourselves  in  the  disavowal  of 
private  motives  when  we  are  engaged  in  the 
pursuit   of   ends   ostensibly  common.     But   the 
feeling  exists,  and  exists  in  undeniable  strength. 
And  the  effect  of  its  presence  is  to  suspend,  so 


far  as  it  goes,  the  anti-social  conflict,  and  to 
introduce  a  new  order  of  relations  in  which  the 
formula  **the  survival  of  the  fittest"  must  be 
abandoned  or  interpreted  in  a  more  human  sense. 
The  substitution  of  this  new  order  for  the  old 
is  the  ethical  aim.  Our  thesis  is,  in  fact,  that 
ethical  law  is  fundamental  social  law,  or  a  sum- 
mary of  certain  elemental  conditions  with  which 
the  social  unit  must  comply  that  he  may  be  fitted 
to  play  his  part  in  the  associative  life.*  And 
it  will  help  us  to  understand  these  conditions 
if  we  consider,  briefly,  the  nature  of  social  feeling 
and  the  process  by  which  social  union  is  established. 

«  Toutes  les  vertus  sont  des  conditions  d^termin€es  de 
la  pleine  vie  sociale,  comme  de  la  pleine  vie  personelle,  par 
cela  m^me  d'une  vie  universelle  et  id^ale. — A.  Fouill^e:  La 
France  au  Point  de  Vue  Morale,  p.  233. 

La  morality,  en  un  mot,  est  la  r^sultante  de  notre  activity, 
de  notre  vie  sociale,  collective,  comme  la  mentality  est  la 
r^sultante  de  notre  activity  sensible,  sensorielle,  psychique. 
— ^Julien  Pioger;  Revue  Philos.,  June,  1894,  p.  637. 

By  saying  that  a  law  is  moral,  we  mean  that  it  belongs  to 
human  beings  as  such,  and  not  as  belonging  to  any  special 
class.  This,  in  my  view,  amounts  to  saying  that  the  moral 
law  defines  a  property  of  the  social  tissue. — Leslie  Stephen: 
Science  of  Ethics,  pp.  167-8. 

That  which  constitutes  the  measure  of  morality  seems  to  be 
the  actual  .  .  .  surrender  of  the  will  to  the  greater  will 
of  the  system  to  which  we  belong.  We  cannot  judge  by  the 
feeling  of  being  good  or  bad;  that  is  absolutely  deceptive. 
— B.  Bosanquet:  Psych,  of  the  Moral  Self,  p.  113.  (London, 
1897.) 


CHAPTER  XII 


INDEPENDENT    ORIGIN    OF    THE    SOCIAL    INSTINCTS 

WE  have  referred  to  the  associative  life  as  the 
product  of  social  feeling,  and  have  as- 
sumed that  this  feeling  is  an  essential  element  of 
our  nature.  Look  backward  as  far  as  we  may 
we  find  man  associating  with  man.  He  appears 
at  the  dawn  of  history,  and  even  in  the  barbarism 
which  makes  no  written  record,  as  living  in  social 
groups  and  seeking  for  the  rude  motions  of  his 
life  a  sympathetic  response  in  the  lives  of  his 
fellow-men. 

But  the  social  life  yields  more  to  the  individual 
than  this  sympathetic  response.  It  renders  him 
service.  He  folds  even  in  the  horde,  or  whatever 
may  be  deemed  the  elementary  social  group, 
companions  in  the  chase  and  comrades  in  attack 
and  defence,  that  is  to  say,  protection  for  his  life 
and  ampler  means  of  sustaining  life.  So  obvious 
indeed  are  the  benefits  of  the  social  state  that 
social  feeling  has  been  defoied  as  little  more 
than  the  sense  of  these  benefits.  Man  loves  his 
fellow-man,  it  is  said,  as  he  loves  his  axe  or  his 
spear,  for  the  use  he  can  make  of  him;  and  his 

124 


Origin  of  Social  Instincts         125 


interest  in  his  fellow-men  exceeds  his  interest 
in  these  things  solely  for  the  reason  that 
he  finds  no  other  instrument  comparable  with 
man  in  the  accomplishment  of  his  private  ends. 
But  the  reduction  of  all  interests  to  an  egoistic 
interest  has  never  been  completely  worked  out. 
And  there  is  a  better  explanation,  as  we  shall 
endeavour  to  show,  of  the  chemistry  or  ultimate 
constitution  of  social  feeling  than  that  which 
traces  it  to  a  sense  of  personal  advantage. 

Nor  can  the  social  instinct  be  treated  as  a  mere 
amplification,  through  the  association  of  ideas,  of 
either  the  sexual  or  the  parental  instinct.  The 
sexual  instinct,  as  such,  is  perhaps  as  purely 
egoistic  as  any  animal  propensity  whatever.  So 
far  as  the  parental  instinct,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  a  social  value,  it  appears,  at  least  in  its 
paternal  aspect,  to  need  as  much  support  from 
mental  association  as  the  social  instinct  itself; 
and  if  in  its  maternal  aspect  it  must  be  regarded 
as  an  original  instinct,  its  social  efficacy,  or  the 
conscious  identification  of  interests  which  it 
implies,  seems  to  be  limited  to  the  scope  of  the 
physical  relation.  The  mother,  as  such,  loves  only 
her  own  child.  Granted  an  active  sympathy, 
independent  of  that  which  is  bound  up  with  the 
instinct  itself,  a  woman's  heart  may  respond  to 
the  appeal  which  she  reads  in  the  face  of  any 
child.  But  there  appears  to  be  nothing  in 
maternal  feeling,  where  the  broader  sympathy  is 


126   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

wanting,  to    convert    it    into    a   general    social 

feeling. 

And  on  the  whole  no  explanation  of  the  sym- 
pathetic or  social  impulse  which  reduces  it  to  a 
mere  by-product,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
association,  of  impulses  more  elementary  than 
itself  appears  to  be  satisfactory.  Social  feeling 
is  of  course  affected  by  the  association  of  ideas, 
the  principle  of  association  being  general  in  its 
operation.  But  even  though  social  feeling  should 
be  shown  to  be  of  later  origin  than  certain  other 
forms  of  feeling,  there  seem  to  be  good  grounds 
for  regarding  it  as  of  independent  origin,  appear- 
ing as  inevitably  as  egoistic  feeling  when  in  the 
development  of  the  psycho-physical  system  the 
necessary  cognitive  or  ideational  basis  is  supplied. 

Feeling,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  inner  or  sub- 
jective aspect  of  a  psychic  process  which  in  its 
outward  and  cognitive  reference  is  classed  as  a 
percept  or  an  idea.  My  perceptions  are  of  course 
my  own.  I  may  perceive  the  same  object  as 
another,  but  I  cannot  perceive  it  through  the 
impressions  of  another:  the  sensory  data  must 
be  mine.  But  it  is  otherwise  with  an  idea.  I 
may  by  suggestion  adopt  the  idea  of  another. 
That  is  to  say,  I  may  infer  from  a  certain  facial 
expression,  or  from  certain  gestures,  soimds,  or 
symbols,  what  is  in  the  mind  of  another,  and  the 
idea  thus  suggested  becomes  my  idea.  And  this 
idea,  being  now  my  own,  will,  if  not  inhibited. 


Origin  of  Social  Instincts         127 


tend  through  my  own  motor  system  to  act  itself 
out.     It  is  its  very  nature  to  seek  expression. 
To  a  certain  extent,  also,  it  will  have  the  same 
emotional  tone  as  in  the  mind  of  the    original 
owner.     In  fact,  we  may  say  generally,  in  view  of 
the  common  basis  of  our  nature,  that  like  ideational 
processes  tend  to  produce  in  different  minds  like 
affectional  results:  allowing  for  individual  differ- 
ences, men  who  are  possessed  of  the  same  idea 
feel  in  the  same  way  and  give  like  expression  to 
their  feelings.     It  is  true  that  these  differences 
may  be  great.    But  they  are  due,  at  least  in  part, 
to  a  difference  in  power  to  interpret  the  symbols 
of  an  idea.     Susceptibility  to  suggestion  presup- 
poses a  certain  refinement  of  sensibility  and  a 
certain  grade  of  intelligence,  and  in  these  respects 
men  are  by  no  means  alike.     But  when  the  cog- 
nitive and  imaginative  powers  of  a  man  are  so  far 
developed  that  he  can  form  a  just  idea  of  the 
mental  experience  of  another,  or  respond  to  sug- 
gestion, the  suggested  idea,  taken  by  itself,  will 
tend  to  express  itself  in  the  same  way,  approxi- 
mately, as  if  the  experience  were  his  own.    And 
the  accompanying  feeling  will  be  the  same  in 
kind,  with  personal  modification  of  course,  as 
if  he  had  gone  through  the  same  experience. 
So  we  feel  another's   pain,   share  his   sorrows 
and  his  joys,  and  keep  pace  with  his  thoughts. 

Ordinarily,  however,  the  feeling  which  arises 
upon  mere  suggestion  will   not  have  the  same 


12 


8   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


strength  as  that  which  is  evoked  by  personal 
experience.  The  suggested  idea  loses  some- 
thing  of  its  vividness  in  passing  by  suggestion 
from  mind  to  mind,  and  therewith  something 
of  its  affective  power.  The  suggested  idea  is 
further  modified  by  the  fact  that  the  dominant 
aims  and  inhibitory  tendencies  which  in  any 
given  case  may  check  the  course  of  an  idea  in  its 
emotional  expression,  or  in  its  advance  to  its 
object,  are  in  no  two  individuals  the  same.  Thus 
the  identification  of  the  suggested  with  the  original 
idea  is  never  perfect.  The  suggested  idea  may 
even  be  cast  out  as  repugnant  to  or  incompatible 
with  the  ideas  of  the  receiving  mind.  But  so 
far  as  the  idea  is  effectively  grasped,  and  resists 
the  personal  influences  which  tend  to  change 
its  character  or  diminish  its  strength,  its  effect 
on  the  feeling  is  the  same  in  kind  when  its  source 
is  in  the  experience  of  another  as  when  the  ex- 
perience  is  one's  own.  The  sympathetic  interest 
is,  so  far,  as  inevitable  as  the  personal  interest. 

Ideas  thus  acquire  their  prevalence  over  many 
minds.  Means  of  communication  are  of  course 
presupposed  wherever  there  is  such  sympathetic 
ideation  with  its  attendant  feeling.  Ideas  are 
not  objects  presented  to  sensuous  or  to  a  so-called 
noetic  perception,  or  passing  bodily  from  brain 
to  brain.  They  are  processes  made  intelligible 
by  symbol.  We  read  another's  mind  in  his  ex- 
pression, his  attitude,  his  gestures,  his  acts;  and 


Origin  of  Social  Instincts         129 

we  employ  the  artificial  s)anbolism  of  speech  for 
the  expression  of  ideas  that  cannot  be  conveyed  by 
the  natural  symbol.  But  our  skill  in  the  use  and 
interpretation  of  our  symbols,  natural  and  conven- 
tional, varies.  It  increases,  however,  with  in- 
crease in  the  refinement,  resources,  and  general 
activity  of  the  mind,  and  also,  we  may  add,  with 
increase  in  emotional  power,  the  capacity  for 
feeling  being  closely  related  to  the  capacity  to 
entertain  such  ideas  as  evoke  the  feeling.  The 
commimication  made  possible  by  symbols  becomes 
at  length,  between  natures  finest  in  texture 
and  richest  in  resource,  so  swift  and  intimate  that 
thought  answers  thought  and  feeling  responds  to 
feeling  as  if  by  direct  contact.  The  sympathy 
may  then  be  said  to  be  complete. 

Social  or  sympathetic  feeling  has  thus  an  original 
basis  in  the  form  of  our  consciousness,  and  stands 
in  no  need  of  derivation  from  special  instincts. 
We  share  the  feelings  of  others  so  far  as  we  share 
in  idea  their  experience  or  their  desires,  and  find 
in  ourselves  no  coimtervailing  impulsion  to  thwart 
the  suggested  idea  in  its  natural  course  to  fruition 
in  feeling  and  action.  And  so  we  may  explain 
the  really  social  elements  of  conjugal,  parental, 
tribal,  or  national  feeling.  The  more  closely 
we  are  associated  the  more  readily  we  imderstand 
one  another,  and  the  special  character  of  the 
association  gives  a  special  character  to  the  con- 
sentient feeling.     In  maternal  feeling  the  sym- 


H 


130  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

pathy  is  perhaps  most  complete,  and  there  the 
identification  of  experience  through  the  suggested 
idea  is  most  complete.  The  mother  knows  every 
movement  of  the  child,  forestalls  every  need, 
and  absorbs,  as  it  were,  the  very  consciousness  of 
the  child.  And  the  feeling  bom  of  this  intimate 
knowledge  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on.  Her  love 
creates  opportimities  for  love. 

And  we  may  say,  speaking  generally,  that  the 
human  consciousness  is  now  so  far  developed  that 
the  capacity  and  the  craving  for  sympathy  are 
among  its  essential  elements.    In  this  capacity 
and  craving  we  have  the  subjective  grounds  of  the 
social  life.    Sympathy  can  be  complete  only  as 
between    kindred    minds,    and    human   nature, 
which   is   fundamentally  everywhere   the  same, 
is  completely  reflected   only  in  human  nature. 
Hence  the  pressure  of  the  demand  for  human  com- 
panionship.    We  are  constitutionally  social.  ^    The 
social  impulse,  it  is  true,  is  traversed  and  ob- 
scured by  egoistic  demands,  and  is  rarely  seen  in 
purity  and  completeness ;   but  so  far  as  we  are 
social  we   seek  human  companionship  for  com- 
panionship's sake,  irrespective  of   its  **utility'* 
or    egoistic    advantage.      A  man   craves   com- 

»  Nor  will  any  one  deny  that  this  affection  of  a  creature 
towards  the  good  of  the  species  or  common  nature  is  as 
proper  and  natural  to  him  as  it  is  to  any  organ,  part,  or 
member  of  an  animal  body,  or  mere  vegetable,  to  work  in  its 
known  course  and  regular  way  of  growth.— Shaftesbury : 
Inquiry  concerning  Virtue  or  Merit,  book  ii.,  part  i,  sec.  i. 


Origin  of  Social  Instincts         131 

panionship  even  when  he  eats,  and  the  loftiest 
creations  of  the  intellect  bespeak  the  appreciative 
response  of  kindred  minds.  The  social  instinct, 
in  short,  pervades  all  our  instincts.  The  self 
cut  off  from  sympathy  is  an  atrophied  self,  and 
in  the  midst  of  egoistic  gratification  wearies  of 
life. 

Seeing  then  that  the  self  in  the  human  type 
is  the  seat  of  a  pervading  social  impulse,  self- 
development  is  necessarily  incomplete  so  long 
as  the  opporttmity  for  social  life  is  incomplete. 
A  social  nature  can  thrive  only  in  a  social  meditun. 
Hence  the  social  impulse  alone,  impure  as  it 
is,  were  ground  enough  for  the  institution  of 
society.  We  must  live  with  mankind  about 
us.  We  must  breathe  an  atmosphere  charged 
with  human  ideas  and  human  feeling  for  the 
reason  alone  that  our  feeling  and  ideas  are  himian. 

But  not  only  is  the  associative  life  a  necessity 
of  our  social  nature;  it  is  no  less  indispensable 
as  a  means  of  broadening  man's  intelligence  and 
developing  his  general  conscious  life.  Without 
society,  as  we  have  said,  there  had  been  nothing 
of  what  we  call  progress.  Art,  science,  literature, 
civilisation  depend  upon  conditions  which  can  be 
realised  only  in  the  social  state,  and  especially 
upon  that  continuity  of  effort  and  ctunulation 
of  benefit  which  the  social  tradition  makes 
possible.  1    Through  this  tradition  the  race  holds 

»  The  content  of  the  intellectual  and  social  environment  is 


'M 


I 

I' 


132   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

what  it  has  won,  and  as  it  is  constantly  adding 
to  its  knowledge  and  the  instruments  of  its 
power  the  gap  between  man  and  the  lower  animate 
world  is  constantly  widened .  And  what  humanity 
yet  may  be  and  do  we  cannot  know.  But  vast 
as  are  the  possibilities  of  human  capacity  and 
effort,  they  are  all  contingent  upon  the  inter- 
change of  ideas  and  the  association  of  effort  which 
are  characteristic  of  the  social  life.  Man  in  isola- 
tion were  merely  the  most  cunning  of  brutes, 
and  his  life  "solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish,  and 

short.''  1 

Thus  every  human  interest  demands  for  its  due 
recognition  a  life  of  common  helpfulness  and 
associated  action.  Social  union  is  the  condition 
at  once  of  collective  achievement  and  of  individual 
growth,  and  marks,  as  we  have  said,  the  beginning 
of  a  new  period  in  human  development.  But 
what  constitutes  a  union  social?  The  social 
imptdse  is  imdeniably  present,  and  men  do  in 
fact  band  together;  and  yet  their  association 
is  far  from  being  one  of  common  service  and 
harmonious  effort.  How  is  it  that  among  beings 
constitutionally  social  we  find  constant  irritation 
and  opposition,  and  too  often  murderous  con- 
flict?    Apparently  men  have  not  yet  mastered, 


kept   constant  by  the  handing  down  of  tradition  through 
social  heredity.— J.  Mark  Baldwin:   On  Selective   Thinking; 
Psychological  Review,  January,  1898. 
»  Hobbes:  Leviathan,  part  i,  chap.  xiii. 


Origin  of  Social  Instincts         133 

or  they  fail  to  apply,  the  principles  which  control 
the  organisation  of  a  true  social  tmion.  We 
may  properly  attempt,  then,  some  sort  of  state- 
ment of  these  principles. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  UNION 

A  TRUE  social  union  will  of  course  oppose  no 
arbitrary  impediment  to  the  suggestions  of 
social  feeling.  In  it  the  identity  of  human 
nature,  which  is  the  ground  of  human  fellow- 
feeling,  will  receive  the  fullest  practical  recogni- 
tion compatible  with  the  aims  of  associative 
action.  The  imion  is  in  principle  a  sympathetic 
union.  1 

Of  course  no  man's  attitude  can  be  in  all  respects 
equally  sympathetic  towards  all  mankind.  The 
fullest  sympathy  is  impossible,  as  we  have  seen, 

1  And  is  not  that  the  best  ordered  State  .  .  .  which  most 
nearly  approaches  to  the  condition  of  the  individual — as 
in  the  body,  when  but  a  finger  is  hurt,  the  whole  frame, 
drawn  towards  the  soul  and  forming  one  realm  under  the 
ruling  power  therein,  feels  the  hurt,  and  sympathises  all 
together  with  the  part  affected,  and  then  we  say  that  the  man 
has  a  pain  in  his  finger?— Plato :  Republic,  462,  C.  D.  (Jowett's 

tr.). 

But  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that,  however  great  weight 

we  may  attribute  to  public  opinion,  our  regard  for  the 
approbation  and  disapprobation  of  our  fellows  depends  on 
sympathy,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  forms  an  essential  part 
of  the  social  instinct,  and  is  indeed  its  foundation  stone. 
—Darwin:  Descent  of  Man,  chap.  iv. 

134 


Principles  of  the  Social  Union     135 

without  intimate  companionship  and  knowledge. 
The  influence  of  the  social  spirit  is  most  effective 
therefore  among  those  who  are  most  closely  re- 
lated ,  not  necessarily  by  local  bonds  or  the  ties  of 
kindred,  but  through  community  of  ideas;  and  it 
diminishes  as  such  community  of  ideas  is  ob- 
structed by  distance,  by  difference  in  language, 
by  incompatibilities  of  temper  and  training,  or  by 
any  cause  which  keeps  the  spheres  of  conscious  ac- 
tivity apart.  While  all  men,  accordingly,  may 
have  a  certain  claim  upon  our  sympathy  in 
virtue  of  their  htmianity,  the  laws  of  feeling 
make  it  impossible  that  the  same  measure  of 
sympathy  should  be  accorded  to  all.  No  man 
can  be  to  all  men  what  he  is  to  the  few  whom 
he  knows  well. 

But  while  we  must  recognise  perforce  certain 
natural  limitations  to  the  expression  of  social 
feeling,  a  true  society  cannot,  as  the  medium 
of  the  sympathetic  life,  restrict  the  range  of  our 
sympathies  by  barriers  artificially  interposed. 
Basing  its  union  on  the  essential  identity  of  our 
nature  in  spite  of  all  difference  it  is  bound  in  its 
own  interest  to  emphasise  the  identity  rather  than 
the  difference.  The  vital  impulse  can  express 
itself  only  where  it  has  way,  and  the  broader 
the  circle  of  our  sympathies  the  broader  the  aims 
and  active  interests  of  our  lives.  Exclusion 
on  the  one  hand  is  restriction  on  the  other.  The 
field  of  social  activity  and  feeling  should  therefore 


136   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Principles  of  the  Social  Union     137 


III 


be  made  as  wide  as  the  conditions  of  life  will  allow. 
Society,  having  its  reason  for  being  in  the  oppor- 
tunities it  offers  for  enriching  and  expanding 
human  life,  contravenes  its  own  principle  when 
by  arbitrary  obstructions  it  dams  up  the  stream 
of  life. 

Not  every  community,  therefore,  which  calls 
itself  a  society  has  full  title  to  the  name.  The 
constitutional  demand  for  sympathy  is  of  com^e 
to  some  extent  satisfied  wherever  men  are  foimd 
living  in  commtmion.  But  society  parts  itself 
off  into  classes  by  lines  impervious  to  social  feeling. 
In  some  communities  there  is  a  class  which  is 
practically  shut  out  of  the  social  league,  and  every- 
where we  find  that  arrogant  self-assertion,  that 
arbitrary  affirmation  of  will  against  will,  which  is 
the  negation  of  social  feeling.  It  were  impossible, 
in  fact,  to  point  to  any  commimity  where  there 
is  no  wanton  exercise  of  power,  ranging  from 
the  assumption  of  petty  social  privilege  to  the 
assertion,  in  fact  or  in  effect,  of  ownership  in  the 
person.  And  all  arbitrary  exercise  of  power,  all 
effort  to  exploit  a  fellow-being  and  degrade  him 
as  a  tool,  is  anti-social. 

But  the  conditions  of  social  union  are  by  no 
means  fully  complied  with  in  the  mere  removal 
of  barriers  to  the  expression  of  social  feeling. 
There  is  no  sharpening  of  faculty,  no  increase 
of  resources,  no  expansion  of  interests  in  the  mere 
massing  of  individuals,  like  the  huddling  of  sheep 


or  the  herding  of  cattle.  To  reap  the  full  benefit 
of  the  social  state  there  must  be  association  of 
effort  with  apportionment  of  tasks  and  diversity 
of  fimction,  or,  to  borrow  the  economist's  phrase, 
division  of  labour.  The  social  imion  must  be  an 
organised  imion. 

Such  an  organised  imion,  confining  the  individ- 
ual, apparently,  to  a  single  monotonous  task, 
might  seem  to  involve  loss  of  faculty  and  of  that 
sense  of  amplitude  of  movement  and  freedom  of 
choice  which  is  the  charm  of  a  varied  life.     But 
social  organisation,  while  it  demands  of  the  indi- 
vidual a  certain  special  skill,  extends  at  the  same 
time  the  general  field  of  opportunity  and  interest. 
So  many  things  are  possible  to  organised  effort, 
and  through  the  interlacing  of  social  aims  the 
individual  takes  part  in  enterprises  so  numerous 
and  varied,  that  the  life  of  the  citizen  in  a  de- 
veloped society  is  incomparably  richer  than  the 
life  of  any  tribesman,   hermit,   or  hunter  who 
seems  to  be  sufficient  to  himself.    Compare  the 
activities  of  the  * 'highly  groomed"  Goethe  with 
those    of    the    most    versatile    and    self-reliant 
trapper.      Beyond  question  organisation  implies 
diversification    no    less    than    specialisation    of 
function. 

And  while  multiplying  the  ends  and  interests 
of  life,  organisation  furnishes  ampler  means  for 
their  pursuit.  It  brings  within  easy  reach  things 
which,  without  it,  had  never  been  dreamed  of. 


138    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


And  it  not  merely  adds  to  the  * 'goods"  of  life, 
and  to  the  appliances  by  which  man  strengthens  his 
feeble  hands  and  sharpens  eye  and  ear  and 
every  sense,  but  it  apparently  adds  to  man's  native 
capacity  for  the  general  pursuits  of  life.  Thus, 
while  multiplying  his  ends,  it  in  many  ways  in- 
creases his  effectiveness  in  winning  his  ends.^ 

And  this  extension  and  diversijfication  of 
employment,  reacting  on  the  feeling,  enriches  the 
distinctively  social  or  sympathetic  life.  Social 
feeling  does  not  exhibit  itself  apart  or  come  im- 
bidden  into  being.  It  presupposes  common  ideas, 
common  aims,  a  conmion  experience.  It  springs 
up  among  neighbours  who  lend  a  hand  when  a 
neighbour  needs  it,  among  workmen  who  supple- 
ment each  other's  labours,  among  citizens  asso- 
ciated in  the  pursuit  of  the  same  civic  ideals  or  in 
defence  of  the  same  national  life.  Like  all  feeling 
it  depends  on  function.    It  craves  companion- 

»  John  Stuart  Mill:  Prin.  of  Political  Economy,  book  i., 
chap.  viii.     See  also  book  iv.,  chap,  i.,  sec.  2. 

Taking  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  and  not  any  one  people, 
it  appears  that  human  development  brings  after  it,  in  two 
ways,  an  ever-growing  amelioration,  first,  in  the  radical  con- 
dition of  Man,  which  no  one  disputes;  and  next,  in  his  cor- 
responding faculties,  which  is  a  view  much  less  attended  to. 
— Auguste  Comte:  Positive  Philosophy,  book  vL,  chap,  iii., 
p.  467  (H.  Martineau's  tr.). 

Per  contra  Buckle:  In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge 
we  cannot  safely  assume  that  there  has  been  any  permanent 
improvement  in  the  moral  and  intellectual  faculties  of  man. 
— History  of  Civilisation  in  England,  vol.  i. ,  p.  1  a  7 .  (Appleton, 
N.  Y..  1883.) 


Principles  of  the  Social  Union      139 

ship,  but  the  companionship  which  satisfies  the 
social  nature  is  not  the  mere  presence  of  a  fellow- 
being,  but  a  comrade's  fellowship  in  the  action, 
suffering,  pursuits,  aspirations,  and  directive  ideas 
of  life.  And  the  more  varied  and  absorbing  the 
common  experience  and  aims,  the  more  com- 
plete is  the  development  of  social  feeling  and  the 
deeper  the  sense  of  social  satisfaction. 

And  as  there  are  few  activities  of  the  ego  that 
cannot  be  shared,  the  social  or  so-called  altruistic 
life  is  not  to  be  conceived  as  in  necessary  opposi- 
tion to  the  life  of  the  ego.     It  appears  from  what 
we  have  learned  of  the  genesis  of  social  feeling 
that  the  ego  socialised  is  simply  the  ego  expanded. 
All  experience  has  its  characteristic  affective  tone. 
Bruises  hurt  us,  warmth  and  sunlight  please  us; 
misfortime  depresses  and  good  forttine  elates  us. 
And  when  the  feeling  becomes  social  it  is  not  by 
the  substitution  of  a  different  feeling,  but  by  the 
modulating  effect  of  the  reflection  of  our  con- 
sciousness   in  another   mind.     The   appearance 
of  this  reflection  is  felt  as  an  enlargement  of  the 
ego,  and  is  a  source  of  pleasure,  mingling  with 
and  modifying  the  original  feeling,  and  disposing 
us  to  welcome  the  presence  of  the  reflecting  mind. 
And  this  pleasure  is  reciprocal.    The  reflection 
is  itself  reflected,  and  there  is  on  both  sides  an 
expansion  of  the  ego,  and  of  the  affectional  life. 
Social  feeling,  in  a  word,  is  pain  assuaged  and 
pleasure  increased  through  sympathetic  enlarge- 


I40  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

ment  of  the  ideational  and  emotional  field.* 
No  hard  and  fast  line  may  be  drawn,  therefore, 
between  the  fimctions  which  we  distinguish  as 
egoistic  on  the  one  hand  and  as  social  on  the 
other.  The  self  is  contemned  as  egoistic  or 
** selfish**  only  in  so  far  as  the  individual  con- 
tracts his  activities  and  interests  to  the  sphere 
of  a  personality  so  narrow  that  he  becomes 
uncompanionable.  The  self  of  absolute  selfishness 
would,  in  fact,  include  little  more  than  animal 
functions.  But  none  of  us  are  restricted  to  these 
poor  limits.  The  self  must  be  in  some  degree 
social,  and  the  distinction  between  the  egoistic 
and  the  altruistic,  between  the  selfish  and  the 
social,  is  for  human  nature  generally  a  question 
of  refinement  and  breadth  rather  than  a  question 
of  function. 

But  enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  enable 
us  to  determine  the  essential  character  of  the 
social  imion.  We  conclude,  gathering  up  the  ends 
of  our  discussion: 

(I)  That  the  social  union  must  be,  first  of 
all,  a  sympathetic  union.  In  so  far  as  the  imion 
is  imsympathetic,  it  negates  its  own  principle. 

(II)  That  it  must  be,  in  the  next  place,  a 
volimtary  union.  This  is  perhaps  implied  in  the 
first  condition.  Sympathy  attends  only  the 
spontaneous  or  independent  movement  of   will 

»  Amor  est  laetitia  concomitante  idea  causae  externae. 
— Spinoza:  Ethices,  pars,  iii.,  definitio  vi.,  in  fine. 


Principles  of  the  Social  Union     141 

accordant  with  will,  and  vanishes  with  the  appear- 
ance of  coercion.  The  union  must  be  voluntary, 
moreover,  to  render  associated  effort  most  effective. 
An  intractable,  loath,  or  dissentient  will  is  an 
element  of  weakness  in  any  association,  and  is 
especially  baneful  where  the  ends  aimed  at  require, 
as  in  social  imion,  the  continuous  application  of 
intelligent  and  reasoning  minds. 

(III)  That  the  social  imion  must  be  an  oigan- 
ised  union,  each  man  having  his  due  place  and 
function  in  the  common  life,  which  demands 
service  of  all.  Organisation  is  necessary  to  econo- 
mise effort  and  multiply  results.  But  in  achiev- 
ing the  ends  to  which  it  is  directly  addressed, 
organisation  indirectly  develops  man's  capacity 
and  enriches  his  feeling,  and  thus  increases  the 
general  worth  of  life  for  the  organising  units. 

(IV)  That,  finally,  the  ends  which  the  union  is 
organised  to  pursue  must  be  rational  ends,  and 
the  method  of  organisation  that  which  is  most 
effective  in  achieving  these  ends.  Rational  ends, 
as  we  have  seen,  are  such  as  are  determined 
by  a  rational  or  consistent  application  of  the 
principle  of  conscious  choice,  or  such  as  tend 
in  their  achievement  to  give  greatest  affective 
value  to  the  conscious  life  as  a  whole.  Society 
exists,  so  far  as  it  is  in  fact  social,  to  aid  in  the 
pursuit  of  such  ends:  it  has  no  other  reason  for 
being.  Founded  for  any  other  purpose  the  union 
would  be  a  merely  arbitrary  union.    And  the 


142  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


amelioration  of  society  depends  upon  the  elimina- 
tion of  its  arbitrary  elements  and  the  progressive 
reduction  of  the  tmion  to  conformity  with  its 
rational  principle. 

Simmiarising  these  conditions  or  characteristics 
of  the  social  union,  we  may  define  such  a  union  as 
a  voluntary  co-operative  organisation  of  inde- 
pendent but  sympathetic  minds,  united  in  a  com- 
mon effort  to  promote  the  rational  ends  of  life, 
or  ends  generalised  from  the  elementary  principle 
which  governs  the  particular  choice. 

Such  a  union  is  of  course  a  mere  ideal.  No 
actual  society  can  be  defined  in  these  terms. 
But  the  will,  like  feeling,  waits  on  the  idea.  Hu- 
manity is  engaged  in  the  institution  of  a  true 
society  and  should  have  some  idea  of  the  main 
features  of  the  society  it  would  foxmd.  We  have 
endeavoured  to  outline  these  features  in  accord- 
ance with  some  ultimate  principle  of  our  nature, 
and  we  have  found  that  the  same  principle 
which  makes  social  life  a  necessity,  namely,  the 
demand  for  such  fimctional  activity  as  will  most 
satisfy,  determines  also  the  constitution  of  the 
ideal  social  imion.  The  ideal  may  never  become 
in  all  respects  real.  But  it  is  an  end  towards 
which  we  may  continually  advance:  it  serves  to 
set  the  direction  of  our  effort. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MORALITY   THE    BASIS   OP  THE   SOCIAL   UNION 

'T'O  socialise  the  will,  or  to  prepare  the  minds 
*  of  men  for  membership  in  the  social  imion, 
IS  the  essential  problem  of  morals.  There  are,  of 
course,  other  elemental  problems  which  the  social 
union  has  to  consider.  Questions  arise  touching 
the  external  form  of  the  union  and  the  administra- 
tion of  its  affairs  as  a  commonwealth  or  polity, 
and  every  advanced  community  concerns  itself 
with  the  general  education  of  its  members.  But 
such  matters  lie  outside  of  what  is  regarded  as 
the  strict  province  of  morals.  The  fimction  of 
morals,  as  a  discipline,  is  to  strengthen  and  refine 
social  feeling  and  dispose  the  will  to  social  con- 
duct; and  ethics,  or  morals  as  a  science,  should 
furnish  an  adequate  theory  of  the  ground,  object, 
and  general  method  of  such  discipline. 

And  the  questions  of  morals  are  still  burning 
questions  because  men  have  as  yet  so  little  social 
aptitude.  We  are  too  near  the  earlier  stages  of 
morality.  The  social  impulse  takes  its  primitive 
form  among  family  and  tribal  relations,  and 
is  at  first  closely  confined  to  the  sphere  of  such 

143 


144  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Morality  the  Basis  of  Social  Union     145 


relations.*     Whatever  is  outside  of  this  sphere 
is  beyond  the  pale  of  sympathy,  and  the  individual, 
unable  to  grasp  the  idea  of  a  general  fraternal 
union,  is  insensible  to  the  broader  requirements 
of  such  union.     His  will,  too,  as  yet  but  rudely 
socialised    by    the    rough    requirements    of    his 
barbarous  entourage,  is  egoistic,  impulsive,  incon- 
stant, and  violent.    The  will's  need  of  discipline 
is  as  urgent  as  the  mind's  need  of  light.    Such 
discipline  practically  involves,  as  we  have  said,  the 
reorganisation  of  the  will,  and  a  task  of  such 
magnitude    is    but    slowly    accomplished.    The 
habits  of  the  will  cannot  suddenly  be  refined. 
Men  live  together.    So  far  as  we  can  learn,  men 
always  have  lived  together.     But  while  men  find  it 
impossible  to  live  in  isolation,  they  find  it  also  im- 
possible to  grasp  the  ftill  intent  of  the  social  impulse 
and  to  freely  co-operate  in  the  pursuit  of  those  bene- 
ficent ends  which  include  humanity  in  their  scope. 
To  make  a  beginning  in  the  reformation  of  the 
will   some  restraint  must  be  imposed   on   the 
arrogance  of  that  blind  self-assertion  which  is 
the  antithesis  of  the  social  habit.    This  necessary 
discipline  is  in  childhood  enforced,  with  more 
or  less  judgment  and  firmness,  by  the  parent. 

>  We  have  now  seen  that  actions  are  regarded  by  savages, 
and  were  probably  so  regarded  by  primeval  man,  as  good  or 
bad,  solely  as  they  obviously  affect  the  welfare  of  the  tribe — 
not  that  of  the  species,  nor  that  of  an  individual  member  of 
the  tribe.— Darwin:  Descent  of  Man,  chap.  iv. 


In  the  childhood  of  the  race  it  may  be  enforced 
by  some  ruler  or  conquering  chief  who,  while 
pursuing  a  selfish  end,  curbs  the  violence  of  the 
imsubjugated  will.  The  effect  of  such  repression 
is  of  course  not  directly  or  necessarily  social. 
So  far  as  it  induces  the  servile  habit  it  is  distinctly 
anti-social,  and  taints  the  will  with  a  vice  more 
pernicious  and  more  difficult  of  cure  than  any  mere 
wildness.  But  somewhere  a  line  must  be  drawn 
beyond  which  the  extravagance  of  self-assertion 
cannot  go.  Without  disabling  the  will  for  that 
independent  volition  which  characterises  the  co- 
operative activity  of  a  genuine  social  life,  the  ego 
must  be  taught  some  respect  for  the  volition 
of  others.  Social  freedom  and  contractual  rights 
presuppose  this  respect.* 

And  civilisation  begins  where  this  regard  for 
others  begins,  and  where  some  systematic  attempt 
is  made  to  enforce  it  upon  the  refractory  will. 
In  all  civilised  states  a  steady  effort  is  made  to 
protect  persons  and  property  from  violence 
and  rapacity,  to  control  the  relations  of  the 
sexes,  and,  in  general,  to  enforce    respect    for 

«  Diese  Beziehung  von  Willen  auf  Willen  ist  der  eigen- 
thtimliche  und  wahrhafte  Boden,  in  welchem  die  Freiheit 
Dasein  hat.  Diese  Vermittelung,  Eigenthum  nicht  mehr 
nur  vermittelst  einer  Sache  und  meines  subjektiven  Willens 
zu  haben,  sondem  ebenso  vermittelst  eines  anderen  Willens, 
und  hiermit  in  einem  gemeinsamen  Willen  zu  haben,  macht 
die  Sphare  des  Vertrags  aus. — Hegel:  Philos,  des  Rechts, 
sec.  71. 

xo 


146  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

each  in  his  place  and  function  as  a  member  of 
the  social  union;  in  other  words,  to  define  and 
protect  individual  rights.  Such  effort  may  be 
at  first  neither  consistent  nor  intelligent.  Men 
are  then  too  imfamiliar  with  social  needs  to 
distinguish  the  essential  from  the  non-essential 
in  social  conduct,  or  to  hold  to  any  steady  con- 
ception  of  the  associative  life.  But  at  any  rate 
a  beginning  is  made  in  the  systematic  training  of 
the  will  in  social  habit. 

As  civilisation  advances  rules  of  conduct 
which  are  found  to  be  necessary  for  the  common 
protection,  or  useful  in  promoting  common 
ends,  tend  naturally  to  receive  general  approval 
and  support.  Such  rules  of  conduct  are  ap- 
proved and  supported,  as  enforced  upon  others, 
even  by  men  who  want  the  inclination  or  the 
firmness  to  adhere  to  them  with  consistency 
themselves.  Against  the  will  of  each  is  pitted 
the  will  of  all.  The  individual  feels  all  his  life  a 
persistent  social  pressure,  a  pressure  which,  how- 
ever obstinate  or  violent  the  egoistic  impulsion, 
he  can  never  wholly  shake  off.  It  is  effectively  pre- 
sent indeed,  as  the  psychologist  assures  us,  in  the 
very  form  of  his  thought.  *    And  at  length  this 

«  Man  is  a  social  outcome  rather  than  a  social  unit. — James 
Mark   Baldwin:  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations ,  part  i., 

chap,  ii.,  sec.  6. 

The  Self  of  any  man  comes  to  consciousness  only  in  con- 
trast with  other  selves.— J  osiah  Royce:  Outlines  of  Psychology, 
chap,  xii.,  sec.  115. 


Morality  the  Basis  of  Social  Union     147 

public  approval,  with  its  obverse  of  censure,  be- 
comes explicit  and  crystallises  as  social  law, 
which  is  finally,  in  part  at  least,  adopted  by  the 
commimity  as  positive  or  tabulated  law.  And 
society  becomes  a  state  when  it  is  incorporated 
for  the  enforcement  of  such  law. 

We  thus  reach  a  definite  statement  of  social 
law,  enimciated  with  the  authority  of  the  public 
voice  and  enforced  by  penalties  publicly  inflicted. 
The  process  by  which  this  consummation  is 
reached  is  not  always  the  same,  and  there  remains 
always  a  large  and  varying  body  of  imwritten 
law  which  from  time  to  time  modifies,  as  it  is  itself 
modified  by,  the  written  prescriptions  of  positive 
or  enacted  law.  But  in  every  state  rights  are  in 
some  sense  defined,  and  provision  is  made  for  the 
enforcement  of  rights. 

Meantime,  while  juristic  and  legislative  effort 
is  engaged  in  defining  the  outward  relations 
of  the  social  units,  the  inward  development,  of 
which  social  usage  and  the  laws  are  the  objective 
expression,  still  continues,  and  becomes  itself 
more  definite  by  reaction  to  definite  laws.  Rights 
outwardly  enforced  are  by  those  in  whom  the  sense 
of  the  common  life  is  strongest  and  most  intelligent 
spontaneously  recognised;  the  social  need  tends 
to  become  more  and  more  distinctly  a  personal 
need;  and,  finally,  to  respect  all  rights,  or,  ab- 
stractly, the  Right,  is  conceived  as  a  private 
obligation. 


148  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

In  time,  when  the  spectilative  habit  has  been 
formed,  the  cxjntemplative  mind  reflects  on  the 
source  and  extent  of  this  obligation.  It  philoso- 
phises. It  elaborates  a  theory  of  conduct  based  on 
what  it  conceives  to  be  the  grotmd  of  this  obli- 
gation, and,  impressed  with  the  importance  of 
making  men  feel  the  obligation,  it  tindertakes 
to  give  practical  expression  to  its  theory.  It 
seeks  to  clarify  the  conception  of  right  and  at  the 
same  time  to  strengthen  the  conviction  that  men 
should  do  the  right.  Thus  there  arises  a  new 
social  discipline  of  deeper  intent  than  the  discipline 
of  the  state,  embodying  a  theory  of  right  or  obli- 
gation, on  the  one  hand,  and  a  code  of  practical 
rules  more  searching  and  comprehensive  than 
those  of  the  state,  on  the  other. 

So  arise  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  Ethics 
or  Morals.  Ethics  is  at  first  hardly  distinguishable 
from  Jurisprudence  and  Politics, ^  and  must  always 
in  virtue  of  its  idealistic  aims  be  closely  related  to 
Religion.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  all  public 
functions  were  originally  more  or  less  merged  in 
the  ministration  of  Religion.  2    But  as  the  associa- 

'  'H  /tip  odv  fjJBoSoi  Todruv  iipterai,  vohruHj  ru  oCcro. — Aristotle: 
Eth.  Nic.,  I.,  ii.,  9. 

This,  then,  is  the  object  of  my  treatise,  which  is  of  a 
political  kind.     (Browne's  tr.) 

'  Quite  enough,  too,  remains  of  these  collections  or  earliest 
codes  both  in  the  east  and  in  the  west  to  show  that  they 
mingle  up  religious,  civil,  and  merely  moral  ordinances  with- 
out any  regard  to  differences  in  their  essential  character; 


Morality  the  Basis  of  Social  Union    1 49 

tive  life  has  developed  the  social  functions  have 
been  specialised.  Religion,  it  is  true,  while 
undergoing  a  development  and  purification  of  its 
own,  still  retains,  as  general  curator  of  the  idealis- 
ing tendencies  in  our  nature,  its  relation  not  only 
to  morals  but  to  all  human  effort  and  feeling. 
But  certain  fimctions,  legislative,  educational, 
artistic,  which  it  once  united  in  itself,  have  be- 
come at  length  disengaged,  though  they  cannot 
be  regarded  as  wholly  independent  of  Religion  or, 
in  all  cases,  of  one  another.  Politics  and  Morals 
for  instance,  have  many  points  of  relation.  The 
state,  which  is  deeply  interested  in  the  conduct 
of  its  citizens,  cannot  of  course  be  indifferent 
to  their  morals.  But  its  point  of  view  is  different 
from  that  of  the  moralist.  In  Statecraft  or 
Politics  it  is  the  outward  or  formal  act  which 
is  mainly  considered,  while  Morality,  as  we  have 
seen,  deals  more  especially  with  the  springs 
of  action,  that  is,  with  the  inner  or  psychic  attitude 
of  the  social  agent.  Morality  addresses  itself 
distinctively,  therefore,  to  the  psychic  unit,  the 
individual  man.  Its  essential  ftmction,  in  other 
words,  is  so  to  reform  the  individual  will  that  the 
will  to  do  right  shall  be  spontaneous  and  constant. 
It  follows  from  what  we  have  said  that  the  right, 


and  this  is  sustained  by  all  we  know  of  early  thought  from 
other  sources,  the  severance  of  law  from  morality  and  of 
religion  from  law  belonging  very  distinctly  to  the  later  ages 
of  mental  progress.— H.  J.  S.  Maine:  Ancient  Law,  chap.  i. 


ISO  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

if  restricted  to  the  field  of  such  rights  as  are  defined 
and  enforced  by  the  state,  falls  short  of  the  Right 
as  embracing  all  that  is  demanded  in  fulfilment 
of  the  moral  purpose.  The  doctrine  of  rights, 
juridically  defined,  applies  simply  to  the  sphere 
within  which  each  will  be  protected  in  his  efforts 
to  supply  his  own  needs  or  satisfy  his  own  desires, 
and  this  sphere  is  limited  by  the  prescription  of 
the  law.  The  Right,  as  identified  with  the  moral 
prescription,  has  a  much  broader  scope.  Applying 
to  the  intent  rather  than  to  the  act,  it  requires 
that  all  acts  whatsoever  shall  accord  with  the 
moral  intent,  and  in  its  most  developed  form 
merges  with  that  which  Benevolence  or  Love  itself 

might  suggest. 

The  practical  delimitation  and  adjustment  of 

rights  is  imdertaken  in  the  public  administration 

of  justice.    Justice  is  the  determination  of  inde- 

terminate  rights  in  accordance  with  the  principle 

upon  which  rights  are  founded,  and  the  concept 

of  Justice  may  vary  as  the  concept  of  the  Right 

has  been  seen  to  vary.     Obviously  there  are  limits 

to  what  can  be  accomplished  by  the  machinery 

of    public    justice.    The    state,    which ^  installs 

the  machinery,  must  content  itself  with  rude 

appliances  and  address  itself  only  to  society's  most 

imperious  needs.     It  can  demand  little  more  than 

is  necessary  for  the  conservation  of  the  social  body. 

The  citizen  or  social  unit  is  therefore  bound  in 

the  social  interest,  which  presumptively  is  his 


Morality  the  Basis  of  Social  Union     151 

own  interest,  to  supplement  the  minimum  of 
righteousness  demanded  of  him  by  the  state 
with  the  more  liberal  measure  suggested  by  the 
conception  of  Justice  which  is  correlative  with  the 
moral  concept  of  the  Right.  And  to  this  gen- 
erous service  he  is  prompted  by  a  quick  and  con- 
trolling sense  of  Duty. 

Duty,  as  we  are  often  told,  is  the  obverse  of 
Right.  It  is  obvious  that  neither  right  nor 
justice  can  be  done  imless  the  citizen  is  willing  to 
serve  and  support  the  social  union  in  giving 
effect  to  its  demands;  and,  granting  the  necessity 
of  maintaining  the  social  state,  such  service  is 
society*s  due.  The  recognition  by  the  individual 
of  society's  right  to  this  service  is  the  sense  of 
Duty.^  And  as  this  sense  of  Duty,  in  its  moral 
acceptation,  arises  from  the  recognition  of  any 
social  requirement  which  the  individual  may 
reasonably  satisfy,  it  is  not  limited  to  the  sphere 
of  rights  which  it  is  practicable  for  society  to  en- 
force. It  is  the  obverse  of  Right  in  the  broadest 
sense  in  which  the  individual  apprehends  the 
Right. 

But  the  sense  of  duty,  it  should  be  noted,  is  not 
always  guided  by  an  intelligent  conception  of 


>  The  good  of  communion,  which  regards  society,  usually 
goes  by  the  name  of  duty,  a  word  that  seems  more  properly 
used  of  a  mind  well  disposed  towards  others:  whilst  the  term 
virtue  IS  used  of  a  mind  well  formed  and  composed  within 
itself. — Bacon:  Adv.  of  Learning,  book  vn.,  chap.  ii. 


152  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

what  is  society's  due.  In  fact,  the  grounds  of  the 
obligation  which  it  imposes  are  seldom  looked 
for,  the  mandate  of  duty  being  by  many  regarded 
as  a  divine  decree,  either  directly  transmitted 
from  without  or,  tmder  the  name  of  conscience, 
suggested  from  within.  The  sense  of  duty  is 
thus  conceived  as  carrying  its  own  warrant,  and 
disposes  the  subject  to  resent  any  question  of  its 
authority,  or  even  any  effort  to  seek  a  rational 
ground  for  its  authority.  To  dispute  it  or  to 
explain  it  is  felt  as  an  impertinence. 

And  in  this  intuitive  or  instinctive  form  the 
sense  of  duty,  when  it  happens  to  be  just,  is 
practically  most  effective.  It  is  by  no  means 
secure  from  misdirection,  however,  and  it  enters 
into  the  service  of  error  with  the  same  imcalculat- 
ing  devotion  and  delight  in  self-sacrifice  with 
which  it  serves  the  truth.  We  follow  it  therefore 
at  a  certain  risk.  A  mistaken  sense  of  duty,  taking 
good  for  evil  and  evil  for  good,  may  defeat  the  very- 
ends  which  duty  should  bind  us  to  pursue.  Urgent 
as  is  our  need  of  quick  instincts  and  ready-made 
concepts  which  in  a  practical  emergency  can  be 
instantly  applied,  it  cannot  be  more  urgent  than 
the  need  that  our  conduct  be  directed  aright. 
And  it  is  plain  that  conscience,  or  the  intuitive 
sense  of  duty,  cannot  always  be  right,  since  its 
mandates  are  foimd  to  conflict.  The  instinctive 
moral  judgment  is  liable  to  error,  and  to  detect 
its  errors  we  must  revert  to  the  general  principles 


Morality  the  Basis  of  Social  Union     153 

which  are  founded  in  the  ftmdamental  require- 
ments of  the  associative  life.  Justice  and  Benev- 
olence, Right  and  Duty,  rest  in  the  same  ultimate 
need,  man's  need  of  the  social  medium  for  his 
development  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  pro- 
foundest  wants.  They  are,  in  fact,  but  various 
aspects  of  the  same  organic  law,  the  law  of  social 
union.  And  the  aberrations  of  conscience,  that  is, 
of  the  instinctive  moral  sense,  must  be  corrected 
by  comparison  of  its  demands  with  the  principles 
of  social  organisation  as  disclosed  in  experience 
to  considerate  thought. 


CHAPTER  XV 

PROGRESSIVE  CHARACTER  OF  THE  MORAL  LAW 

SOCIAL  organisation  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
necessity.  It  is  an  indispensable  means  of 
developing  the  individual  life  and  enhancing  its 
affectional  value.  And  the  moral  law,  resting  for 
its  authority  upon  this  necessity,  defines  the 
elementary  social  relations  and  the  temper  or 
general  direction  of  the  will  essential  to  the  con- 
solidation of  the  social  union.  It  lays  down 
what  we  may  call  the  volitional  basis  of  social 
union. 

And  here,  it  would  seem,  we  might  properly  un- 
dertake to  systematise  the  precepts  of  morals,  or 
to  review  with  some  particularity,  in  the  light  of 
the  theory  we  are  defending,  the  current  moral 
concepts.  But  such  a  task  does  not  fall  strictly 
within  the  scope  of  our  purpose.  It  is  not  with  the 
superstructure  but  with  the  foundation  of  morals 
that  we  are  concerned. 

And  we  may  the  more  readily  be  spared  such 
a  task  in  view  of  the  presumption  which  goes  with 
the  ordinary  moral  requirements.  Their  origin 
is  not  of  yesterday.  They  have  been  tested  by  the 
independent   experience   of   many   commimities 

154 


Progressive  Character  of  Moral  Law   155 


through  coimtless  generations,  and  they  have 
been  tested  implicitly  or  unconsciously  by  the 
standard  which  we  have  attempted  to  make  ex- 
plicit. We  may  assume,  accordingly,  that  the  moral 
consciousness  of  mankind,  in  all  commtmities 
where  it  has  had  opporttmity  for  free  development, 
is  in  its  main  demands  soimd,  that  is,  tends  to 
strengthen  the  social  bond.^  Common  morality 
is  empirical,  it  is  true,  and  shows  something  of  the 
weakness  of  empiricism,  something  of  its  false  per- 
spective and  inconsequence.  Its  maxims  stand 
in  need  of  a  clearly  defined  principle  by  which 
they  may  be  explained  and  harmonised,  or  more 
intelligibly  stated.  We  have  attempted  to  enun- 
ciate such  a  principle,  and  we  shall  carry  our 
examination  of  the  social  or  moral  demand  no 
further  than  is  necessary  to  show  its  conformity 
to  this  principle. 

We  may  observe,  in  the  first  place,  as  showing 
the  relation  of  the  moral  demand  to  social  need, 
that  the  value  imputed  to  the  social  virtues  is  by 
no  means  constant.  The  emphasis  varies  with  the 
varying  pressure  of  the  social  need .  History  shows 
us  communities  of  men  in  widely  different  stages 

«  I  have  .  .  .  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  social  in- 
stincts— the  prime  principle  of  man's  moral  constitution — 
with  the  aid  of  active  intellectual  powers  and  the  effects  of 
habit,  naturally  lead  to  the  golden  rule,  "As  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  to  them  likewise  " ;  and  this  lies 
at  the  foimdation  of  morality. — Darwin:  Descent  of  Man, 
chap.  iv. 


is6  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

of  social  development,  and  as  the  moral  demand  in 
any  given  age  and  nation  roughly  represents 
the  social  need  as  then  felt  by  the  community, 
it  should  bear  on  its  face  some  relation  to  the  exist- 
ing phase  of  social  development.  We  should  ex- 
pect this  of  the  true  moral  demand,  that  is,  of  a 
demand  which  should  be  based  on  a  true  estimate 
of  social  conditions  and  requirements.  And 
this  index  of  vitality  we  find  in  the  actual  demand. ^ 
Physical  courage,  for  instance,  is  in  primitive 
times,  when  the  commimity  lies  \mder  a  permanent 
threat  of  extinction  by  foreign  foes,  pre-eminent 
among  the  virtues.  It  is  then,  in  fact,  the  virtue, 
the  sign  of  virility  or  essential  manhood.  But  as 
the  community  feels  itself  more  secure  and  war 
ceases  to  be  its  main  occupation,  qualities  despised 
by  the  warrior,  or  contemptuously  approved  as 
the  virtues  of  an  inferior  order,  come  in  time  to 
outrank  the  more  soldierly  attributes.  Industry, 
for  example,  or  the  capacity  for  continuous  toil,  has 
in  our  day  lost  the  servile  implication  which  it 
long  carried  over  from  more  militant  times,  and 
commands  the  respect  which  its  importance  to  the 
social  fabric  justifies.  Mere  indolence,  on  the 
other  hand,  though  generally  despised,  is  not 
branded  as  distinctly  immoral.    The  reason  is  not 

>  Each  of  the  leading  modes  of  social  existence  determines 
for  itself  a  certain  system  of  morals  and  manners. — Auguste 
Comte:  Positive  Philosophy,  book  vi.,  chap,  iii.,  p.  470 
(Martineau's  tr.). 


Progressive  Character  of  Moral  Law  157 

far  to  seek.  The  eye  of  the  community  is  most 
anxiously  directed  to  the  point  where  danger  is 
most  feared,  and  though  idleness  in  a  community 
which  has  ceased  to  be  predatory  were,  if  general, 
as  fatal  to  the  aims  of  society  as  stealing,  lying, 
intemperance,  or  any  recognised  vice,  and  would 
at  once  arrest  its  growth,  there  appears  to  be  no 
imminent  peril  of  such  arrest.  Indolence,  more- 
over, in  an  industrial  community  carries  its  own 
penalty.  Men  feel  that  the  idle  and  thriftless  may 
in  general  be  left  to  the  spur  of  necessity  or 
abandoned  with  indifference  to  their  fate. 

No  such  obvious  penalty  attaches,  however,  to 
treachery  and  deceit,  vices  from  which  society  is 
constantly  in  peril  of  disintegration.  That  men 
should  be  able  to  trust  at  least  their  associates  is, 
even  in  rude  times,  a  condition  of  associative  action. 
Sincerity  and  good  faith,  qualities  which  inspire 
confidence,  are  therefore  rated  high,  and  the 
condemnation  of  falsehood  and  perfidy,  especially 
as  between  *  ^neighbours,' '  is  correspondingly  severe. 
And  with  the  increasing  complexity  of  social  re- 
lations which  comes  with  social  development  the 
interdependence  of  the  social  units  grows  more 
complete,  and  the  demand  for  qualities  which 
inspire  confidence  becomes  more  general.  In 
modem  society,  in  fact,  this  demand  is  para- 
moimt.  A  man  must  trust  his  fellow-men  at  every 
turn ;  he  must  trust  even  where  treachery  is  feared. 
It  is  inevitable  therefore  that  in  the  scale  of  moral 


158  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

values  a  progressively  higher  rank  should  be  given 
to  the  qualities  which  secure  us  against  betrayal 
and  justify  our  trust.  When  a  man  inwardly  is 
that  which  outwardly  he  seems  to  be,  when  his 
actions  are  as  his  speech,  and  he  meets  us  with 
the  directness  of  a  fearless  simplicity,  we  feel  that 
his  character,  whatever  its  faults  of  excess  or 
defect,  is  in  all  essentials  moral.  Integrity  is 
now,  in  place  of  valour,  the  type  and  summation  of 
virtue.  In  this  quality  our  complex  society 
coheres. 

Further  illustration  of  the  practical  character 
and  constant  modulation  of  the  moral  demand 
may  be  foimd  in  the  varying  interpretation  of  the 
general  virtue  of  temperance  or  self-control.  Self- 
control  implies  a  type  from  which  by  self-abandon- 
ment we  may  diverge.  Guided  by  this  principle, 
abstractly  conceived,  we  should  censure  with  equal 
voice  all  incontinence  or  aberration  from  the 
type.  Society,  however,  looking  to  practical 
issues  and  economising  effort,  marks  for  special 
condemnation  only  such  forms  of  incontinence 
as  appear  to  involve  grave  consequence  and 
threaten  the  social  well-being.  Instance  anger, 
once  the  moralist's  pet  theme,  ^  when  impulses 
were  violent  and  manners  were  rude,  but  less 
adverted  to  since  manners  were  softened;  and 
drunkeimess,  an  intermittent  mania  which  tmfits 

»  L.  Annaeus  Seneca:  Minor  Dialogues;  Plutarch:  Morals; 
Epictetus:  Discourses,  book  i.,  chap,  xxviii. 


Progressive  Character  of  Moral  Law   159 

a  man  for  all  social  duty,  and  which  is  condemned 
for  that  reason,  while  gluttony,  equally  incontinent 
but  less  obviously  harmful,  is  condoned.  On  the 
other  hand,  among  violations  of  the  principleof  self- 
control  which  are  condemned  with  increasing 
severity  are  certain  forms  of  sexual  excess.  These, 
as  the  source  of  patent  and  immediate  evil  as 
well  as  of  insidious  and  far-reaching  social  taint, 
are  singled  out  for  censure  as  in  an  eminent 
sense  incontinent;  and  the  censure  is  the  more 
severe  the  more  sensible  man  becomes  of  the 
injury  wrought  by  vices  which  corrupt  the  social 
bond. 

This  shifting  of  the  emphasis  which  society 
places  upon  the  demands  wWch  we  class  as  moral 
strengthens  our  contention  that  morality  is  founded 
in  social  need.  Assuming  that  the  moral  law  is 
organic  social  law,  we  should  expect  to  find  in  a 
developing  society  subject  to  this  law  some 
variation  in  the  rigour  with  which  society  enforces 
any  particular  rule.  Relatively  to  all  such  rules, 
the  great  end  alone,  the  complete  social  union  of 
mankind,  may  be  taken  as  constant.  A  imiform 
inflexible  rule,  or  a  mere  indurated  custom, 
divorced  from  the  moral  judgment  and  treated  as 
itself  the  end,  were  therefore  a  sign  of  moral 
decadence  instead  of  moral  life.  The  social  de- 
mand, to  maintain  its  character  as  vital  moral 
law,  must  show  that  it  can  shape  itself  with  the 
plasticity  of  a  vital  principle  as  a  means  to  the 


i6o  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

moral  end.  And  something  of  this  plasticity  we 
have  foimd  in  actual  social  law.  In  this  respect 
at  least  social  law  coincides  with  what  we  have 
characterised  as  the  true  moral  demand.  And, 
so  far,  it  confirms  our  accoimt  of  the  nature  of  this 
demand. 

It  is  important  to  note,  however,  that  the  actual 
social  demand,  though  pressed  as  moral,  does  not 
necessarily  coincide  at  all  points  with  the  true 
moral  demand,  that  is,  with  the  necessities  of  the 
social  situation  as  in  truth  it  confronts  us.  Society, 
even  in  its  moral  development,  does  not  cease  to  be 
an  association  of  fallible  human  beings.  Errors  of 
fact  and  errors  of  judgment  are  reflected  in  all 
human  law,  and  the  social  demand,  which  owes 
its  validity  to  its  identity  with  the  true  moral  de- 
mand, may  be,  and  sometimes  is,  but  the  expression 
of  a  social  prejudice.  Every  community  has  the 
defects  of  its  qualities,  and  every  community 
looks  with  lenient  eye  on  offences  which  spring 
from  a  prevailing  moral  weakness.  A  society, 
like  an  individual,  may  even  mistake  its  vices  for 
virtues.  More  than  one  nation  has  gone  down, 
for  instance,  in  the  lust  and  exaltation  of  mere 
power. 

While  therefore  we  are  boimd  to  respect  the 
garnered  wisdom  of  mankind  as  expressed  in  the 
moral  traditions  of  the  race,  it  is  of  the  last  im- 
portance that  such  traditions  be  not  received 
with  the  dread  reverence  which  holds  them  too 


« '  • .- 


/ 


Progressive  Character  of  Moral  Law    i6i 

sacred  for  analysis,  question,  or  suggestion.     Like 
the  deliverances  of  conscience,  they  are,  after  all, 
human  in  their  utterance.    They  constitute,  im- 
doubtedly,  the  richest  gift  which  humanity  can 
bequeath  to  its  heirs,  and  no  sotmd  judgment 
will  underestimate  the  force  of  a  behest  laid  upon 
us  with  the  whole  authority  of  the  past.    But  the 
moral  life  is  in  the  end  a  personal  life.     It  is  the 
product  of  individual  feeling  and  judgment  reacting 
upon  the  general  moral  opinion  and  the  traditions 
which  it  embodies.      It  cannot  therefore  be  me- 
chanically imposed  from  without.      It  demands 
the  intelligent  and   sympathetic  assent  of  the 
person,  that  is,  of  an  independent  and  rational 
will.    And  the  person,  reacting  to  common  opinion 
and  the  social  tradition,   contributes   from  his 
individual   character  and    experience   just   that 
element  which  is  necessary  to  vitalise  the  tradition, 
and  convert  it  from  a  mere  heirloom,  the  relics  and 
exuviae  of  the  past,  into  a  valid  and  continuously 
developing  law.i 

»A  time  always  comes  at  which  the  moral  principles 
originally  adopted  have  been  carried  out  to  all  their  legitimate 
consequences,  and  then  the  system  founded  on  them  becomes 
as  rigid,  as  unexpansive,  and  as  liable  to  fall  behind  moral 
progress  as  the  sternest  code  of  rules  avowedly  legal.— Henry 
J.  Sumner  Maine:  Ancient  Law,  chap.  iii. 


n 


J  ! 


I: 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PRESCRIPTIVE    MORALITY  AND    THE  MORAL   SPIRIT 

BUT  were  the  actual  demand,  as  embodied  in  any 
possible  statement,  cleared  of  inconsistency 
and  error,  it  could  not  embrace  in  its  prescriptions 
the  complete  moral  demand.     We  may  agree  upon 
an  abstract  definition  of  the  general  moral  end,  and 
we  may  supplement  the  injunction  to  pursue  this 
end  with  subsidiary  rules,  such  as,  Thou  shalt 
do  no  murder.  Thou  shalt  not  steal.  Honour  thy 
father  and  mother,  and  the  like.     But  we  cannot 
completely  or  adequately  define  each  immoral 
act  or,  on  the  other  hand,  every  act  which  we  may 
allow  to  be  moral.    The  juridical  code  we  found 
to  be  restricted  by  the  limits  of  its  power  to  enforce 
its  provisions.    We  may  add  that  neither  the 
moral  code  nor  any  possible  code  can  definitely 
prescribe  the  whole  course  of  human  conduct. 

Even  such  particular  injunctions  as  we  have 
instanced  are  abstract,  and  require  interpretation 
as  applied  to  any  actual  case.  The  term**  murder' 
does  not  always  define  itself.  For  the  same  act, 
if  the  act  has  a  political  bearing,  a  man  may  be 
hanged  as  a  murderer  and  lauded  as  a  hero. 

162 


Prescriptive  Morality 


163 


But  wherever  the  relations  of  the  parties  to  the 
act  are  of  a  familiar  or  well  established  type  the 
necessary  interpretation  is  furnished  by  tradition 
or  precedent  or  common  opinion.  In  private 
relations  we  are  fairly  well  agreed  as  to  what 
constitutes  murder,  and  ordinarily  we  have 
little  trouble  in  imderstanding  what  is  meant 
by  perjury  or  theft.  Changes  of  relation,  however, 
embarrass  an  old  rule  with  newdifficulties.  Family 
life,  for  instance,  has  been  disturbed  by  the  in- 
tellectual emancipation  of  woman.  But  while  the 
modem  woman  stands  in  open  revolt  against  the 
rule,  once  general,  that  the  husband  may  exact 
strict  obedience  from  his  wife,  opinion  is  by  no 
means  agreed  as  to  the  accommodation  by  which 
a  divided  supremacy  shall  not  lead  to  anarchy. 

In  public  affairs  opinion  may  be  still  more  at 
fault.  We  find  it  floundering  among  principles 
none  of  which  it  will  venture  to  gainsay,  and  none 
of  which  it  knows  how  to  apply.  When  the 
government,  for  example,  imposes  a  discriminating 
tax  in  favour  of  a  certain  industry,  opinion  is 
divided  as  to  whether  the  discrimination  is  or  is 
not  robbery.  The  laws,  and  the  execution  of  the 
laws,  against  gambling  and  sexual  irregularities 
offer  further  illustration  of  this  divergence  of 
opinion.  In  like  manner  the  question  whether 
murder  lies  at  the  door  of  a  government  which 
engages  in  the  horrible  carnage  of  war  is  a  question 
about  which,  in  any  given  case,  the  parties  and 


i64  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

their  adherents  will  wrangle  without  hope  of 
agreement.  That  international  action  is  amen- 
able to  social  law  probably  no  moralist  would 
dispute.  To  the  general  hiunan  interest  all  inter- 
ests must  be  made  subordinate.  But  opinion  is 
guided  by  no  clear  and  well-recognised  description 
of  the  particular  public  acts  which  nm  coimter 
to  this  interest  and  which  must  be  treated  as 
national  crimes. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  prohibitions  of  the 
moral  code,  simple  and  direct  as  we  conceive 
them  to  be,  are  by  no  means  exhaustive  descrip- 
tions of  the  acts  which  they  prohibit.  They  are 
adequate  in  common  cases,  where  the  common 
consciousness  supplements  with  point  and  circum- 
stance the  abstract  mandate  of  the  code.  But  in 
extraordinary  cases,  where  experience  is  wanting, 
or  where  the  matter  is  too  complex  to  be  grasped 
by  the  common  understanding,  common  rules  are 
applied  with  hesitation  and  distrust.  In  fact,  the 
moral  disputation  so  frequent  in  ordinary  discourse, 
touching,  for  instance,  the  obligations  of  a  citizen, 
our  duty  to  the  poor,  the  limits  of  private  resent- 
ment, show  that  imdetermined  cases  arise  even 
in  the  course  of  common  experience.  Life,  in 
short,  cannot  be  reduced  to  rule.^  We  may 
stunmarise  in  a  rule  the  results  of  experience,  and 

»  There  are  few  laws  the  breach  of  which  (in  obedience  to 
a  higher  law)  morality  does  not  allow.— F.  H.  Bradley: 
Ethical  Studies,  p.  142  (Anast.  reprint). 


Prescriptive  Morality 


165 


where  the  case  is  simple  and  the  experience 
common,  the  rule  will  commonly  suffice.  But 
where  the  rule  fails,  or  where  we  are  in  doubt  what 
rule  to  apply,  we  must  fall  back  on  the  reason  of 
all  rules.  We  must  recur  to  the  general  social  law 
that  whatever  we  do  shall  be  done  in  the  fra- 
ternal spirit  which  looks  to  the  imion  of  our  kind 
in  a  common  efifort  to  enhance  the  value  of  life. 

The  moral  life,  in  other  words,  requires  the 
guidance  of  a  judgment  which  is  in  sympathy 
with  the  moral  end.  The  mind  must  be  imbued 
with  the  moral  spirit.  The  practical  value  of 
rules  is  indisputably  great.  They  furnish  us 
with  a  ready  solution  of  problems  which  cannot 
wait  for  the  laboured  analysis  of  an  tmforeseen  sit- 
uation in  the  light  of  the  general  principle.  And 
for  the  most  part,  as  we  have  seen,  they  carry  in 
the  common  thought  their  own  interpretation. 
But  the  rule,  without  interpretation,  is  abstract, 
indefinite,  and  incomplete,  and  the  same  spirit 
which  led  to  the  acceptance  of  the  rule  must 
guide  the  conscience  in  interpreting  and  supple- 
menting the  rule.  One  need  not  be  a  philosopher, 
of  course,  to  be  informed  by  this  spirit.  The 
moral  obligation  may  be  divined,  so  to  speak, 
with  practical  effect  on  the  will,  by  a  mind  which 
has  little  skill  to  analyse  or  define  the  process  by 
which  its  conclusions  are  reached.  But  in  some 
way  the  tendency  of  the  will  must  be  harmonised 
with  the  moral  aim.    The  moral  life  is  the  expres- 


i^ 


1 66  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

sion  of  a  purpose,  and  one  must  be  in  some  effective 
sense  governed  by  this  purpose  in  order  to  interpret 
and,  when  need  arises,  to  supplement  the  prescrip- 
tions of  the  moral  law. 

Whether  therefore  we  regard  the  precepts  of 
morals  from  the  point  of  view  of  justice  defining 
rights,  or  of  duty  prompting  service,  or  of  good- 
will scattering  benefits,  we  cannot  hope  to  grasp 
their  true  meaning  unless  we  feel  and  share  their 
intent.  Justice  applying  the  rule  in  indifference 
to  the  reason  of  the  rule  becomes  irrational  and 
oppressive,  that  is  to  say,  unjust.  Duty  absorbed 
in  the  routine  of  service  becomes  mechanic  and 
renders  lifeless  and  inadequate  service.  The 
good-will  which  is  merely  personal  becomes  arbi- 
trary, and  even  in  private  affairs  pernicious; 
while  in  matters  of  public  moment,  putting  the 
person  before  the  state,  it  may  corrupt  the  admin- 
istration and  debase  the  character  of  the  state. 
The  processes  of  self-development,  even,  lose  their 
main  impetus  and  interest,  and  tend  to  restriction 
and  shrinkage  of  the  self,  if  the  personal  good  is 
conceived  as  dissociated  from  the  common  good. 
In  fine,  the  moral  spirit  alone,  intelligently  pursu- 
ing the  moral  end,  can  vitalise  the  moral  law,  aad 
build  the  acts  of  the  will  into  a  genuine  moral 

life. 

And  the  moral  spirit  is  imder  every  guise  the 
same.  Whether  it  wear  the  sad  feature  of  Duty, 
or  the  stem  visage  of  Justice,  or  the  gracious  mien 


Prescriptive  Morality  167 

of  Love,  it  is  the  same  synthetic  vivifying  principle, 
reducing  the  strife  of  will  against  will,  and  blending 
the  jarring  elements  of  social  life  into  a  union  of 
free,  intelligent,  and  consentient  minds.  Duty 
must  be  done ,  duty  which  disciplines  the  will.  And 
justice  must  be  done,  justice  which  strikes  that 
it  may  heal.  But  when  duty  and  justice  are 
done,  the  moral  spirit  appears  in  its  proper  guise 
as  Love,  which  alone  can  be  in  all  things  dutiful 
and  just.  Love,  the  formative  spirit,  whose  office 
is  to  mould  the  contentious  purposes  of  men  into 
the  strong  and  constant  will  of  Man — 

"  Man,  one  harmonious  soul  of  many  a  soul, 
Whose  nature  is  its  own  divine  control." 


SECTION    V 

Moral  Discipline 
CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  state's  right  TO  PUNISH 

WITHIN  the  boundaries  of  every  social  group 
is  included  an  element  which  is  so  reckless 
in  its  disregard  of  social  law,  or  the  conditions  of 
the  associative  life,  that  it  threatens  the  integrity 
of  the  group.  This  unruly  element  society  as  the 
state  imdertakes  by  force  to  repress.  The  state 
prohibits  by  law  offences  against  the  peace  and 
order  of  the  state,  and  pimishes,  according  to  a 
graduated  scale  of  penalties,  infractions  of  the 
law.  And  in  face  of  the  ever  imminent  peril  of 
social  dissolution  it  shrinks  from  no  necessary 
severity.  As  occasion  requires  it  deprives  men 
of  property,  of  liberty,  of  life. 

This  punitive  function  the  state  everywhere 
assumes.  Taking  human  nature  as  we  find  it, 
the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  were 
futile  if  no  effort  were  made  to  enforce  the  right, 
and  to  prevent  or  pimish  or  redress  a  wrong. 

i68 


The  State's  Right  to  Punish      169 

And  the  general  right  of  the  state  to  inflict 
punishment  will  scarcely  be  disputed.  There  is 
some  contention,  however,  as  to  the  nature  and 
groimd  of  the  right. 

A  common  theory  touching  this  right  is  that 
it  is  a  form  of  the  so-called  right  of  self-defence, 
which  is  conceived  as  ''inherent"  or  * 'natural,*' 
that  is,  as  a  right  which  neither  requires  nor  is 
capable  of  explanation.  Like  other  principles 
which  resist  our  analysis  it  is  regarded  as  ultimate. 
And  the  fimction  of  punishment,  whatever  else  it 
is,  is  imdoubtedly  protective.  As  inflicted  by  the 
state,  punishment  is  directed  against  attacks  upon 
the  social  order,  that  is,  against  acts  which 
threaten  the  very  existence  of  society  and  the 
state.  It  may  be  regarded  therefore  as  a  measure 
of  self-defence  or  self-conservation  on  the  part  of 
the  state.  But  the  principle  of  self-conservation 
cannot  in  itself  be  made  the  basis  of  a  right.  It 
is  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  self-con- 
servation that  a  cat  springs  at  a  mouse,  and  the 
mouse  acts  upon  the  same  principle  when  it  strug- 
gles to  escape.  But,  apart  from  ideas  borrowed 
from  human  social  relations,  there  is  no  question 
of  right  in  the  case.  A  right  implies  some  principle 
recognised  as  common,  and  there  is  in  the  nature 
of  the  animals  no  common  principle  upon  which 
a  right  could  be  based.  The  two  natures  are 
simply  incompatible.  The  cat  with  its  instincts 
persists  at  the  expense  of  the  mouse. 


I70  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

And  we  may  say,  generally,  that  there  is  in  the 
instinct  of  self-conservation,  which  includes  the 
instinct  of  self-defence,  nothing  which  will  lead 
us  forth  of  the  self,  or  tend  to  establish  any  ground 
of  rights.  It  is  indeed  part  of  the  endowment  of 
human  nature  to  which,  as  to  other  instincts 
and  impulses,  the  doctrine  of  rights  may  be  ap- 
plied. But  the  gratification  of  the  instinct  is  of 
itself  not  properly  a  right.  It  becomes  a  right 
only  as  permitted  and  defined  by  some  principle 
which  co-ordinates  the  self  with  other  beings 
having  a  common  nature,  and  by  which  place 
and  limits  are  assigned  to  the  operation  of  the 
instinct.  I  may  defend  myself,  but  with  a  proviso. 
It  is  not  the  instinct,  therefore,  but  the  instinct 
as  subordinated  to  the  principle,  which  falls  within 

the  field  of  rights. 

This  limiting  principle  we  may  trace,  ultimately, 
to  the  social  impulse  and  our  social  needs,  which 
are  tacitly  assumed  to  be  paramoimt  to  all  other 
impulses  and  needs.  The  self  conserving  itself 
in  the  narrow  or  physical  sense  is  in  its  relations 
to  others  mainly  destructive.  But  the  self  con- 
ceived as  a  human  being  in  the  complete  sense  of 
the  word  needs,  as  we  have  seen,  association 
with  other  human  beings  for  the  conservation 
and  adequate  discharge  of  its  social,  intellectual, 
and  characteristic  fimctions.  Apart  from  society 
human  life,  we  feel,  would  be  relatively  worthless. 
Hence  the  institution  of  society  is  otir  most  im- 


The  State's  Right  to  Punish      171 

perious  need.  The  social  demand  is  supreme. 
And  rights  arise  upon  such  limitation  of  the 
sphere  of  individual  impulse  and  activity  as  is 
implied  in  the  existence  of  the  social  order. 
Rights  define,  in  fact,  the  boundaries  of  such 
activity,  and  the  gratification  of  the  instinct  of 
self-defence,  or  of  any  propensity  of  our  nature, 
becomes  a  right  only  as  limited  and  allowed  in 
conformity  with  the  conditions  of  social  life. 
If  men  lived  isolated  lives,  if  they  recognised 
no  common  interests  and  engaged  in  no  common 
pursuits,  there  would  be  no  occasion  for  the  defi- 
nition or  the  conception  of  rights.  An  imqualified 
egoism  would  prevail.  But  men,  being  by  nature 
social,  are  found  everywhere  associated  in  groups 
having  a  commimity  of  interests.  Such  com- 
mimity  of  interests  can  of  course  be  maintain- 
ed only  on  terms  of  individual  restraint.  The 
definition  of  these  terms  is  the  definition  of 
rights.  And  what  we  call  inherent  or  natural 
rights  are  simply  the  elementary  terms  of  associa- 
tion which  are  so  universally  assumed  that  they 
seem  to  need  no  justification  in  any  other  prin- 
ciple. Natural  rights  and  all  rights  are  grounded 
in  social  need.^ 

»  Das  Recht  ist  also  der  Inbegriff  der  Bedingungen,  unter 
denen  die  WillkOr  des  Einen  mit  der  Willk<ir  des  Anderen 
nach  einem  allgemeinen  Gesetze  der  Freiheit  zusammen  ver- 
einigt  werden  kann. — Kant:  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  Einleitung 
in  die  Rechtslehre,  sec.  B. 

Das  strikte  Recht  kann  auch  als  die  Mdglichkeit  eines  mit 


172  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


The  justification  of  the  state,  then,  in  piinishing 
infraction  of  its  laws  lies  ultimately  in  the  necessity, 
universally  felt,  of  the  associative  life.  And  as  the 
essential  conditions  of  this  life,  so  far  as  they 
concern  the  general  form  of  volitional  action,  are 
expressed  in  the  moral  law,  pimishment  may 
rightly  be  inflicted  only  for  violation  of  such  laws 
as  are  either  founded  upon  or  in  harmony  with 
the  moral  law.  The  action  of  the  state  stands 
always  in  need  of  social  or  moral  justification. 
Laws  may  in  fact  be  arbitrary,  that  is,  demanded 
by  no  social  need.  But  no  right  vests  in  the 
state  to  punish  infraction  of  such  laws  save  the 
ill-defined  right  by  which  the  state  may  claim, 
as  universal  protector,  the  obedience  of  its 
citizens  even  to  laws  which  are  not  wholly  just. 
The  human  mind  could  not  devise  a  system 
of  laws  which  should  do  no  injustice,  and  it  were 
better,  in  the  social  interest,  to  suffer  a  little 
wrong  than  to  weaken  the  hands  of  the  great  con- 
servator of  right.  1  But  the  state  is  not  clothed, 
in  virtue  of  this  concession  to  htmian  fallibility , 
with  the  right  to  enforce  obedience  in  respect  of 

Jedermanns  Freiheit  nach  allgemeinen  Gesetzen  zusammen- 
stimmenden  durchg&igigen  wechselseitigen  Zwanges  vorge- 
stellt  werden. — 76.,  sec.  E. 

«  And  thus  among  civilised  people,  after  the  distinction 
between  law  and  morality  is  fully  established,  it  comes 
to  be  understood  that  it  is  a  specific  moral  duty  to  obey 
existing  positive  law,  not  only  when  we  cannot  see  the  reason 
for  it,  but  when  we  think  the  reason  a  bad  one. — Frederick 
Pollock:  Essays  in  Jurisprudence  and  Ethics,  p.  25. 


The  State's  Right  to  Punish      173 

all  that  it  may  choose  to  command,  whether  it  be 
monarch,  senate,  or  demos  that  stands  for  the  state. 
History  is  not  without  examples,  indeed,  of  govern- 
ment which,  viewed  in  its  general  relation  to  its 
subjects,  is  organised  wrong.     But  if  the  laws  are 
fairly  just,  they  are  simply  the  assertion  of  prin- 
ciples which  an  offender,  when  he  participates  in 
the  privileges  of  social  life,  himself  asserts.     In 
other  words,  as  against  society  insisting  on  com- 
pliance with  the  true  conditions  of  social  order  no 
man  can  have  any  right  whatever,  since  rights 
arise  only  on  the  assumption  that  the  require- 
ments of  social  order  are  paramotmt.    The  moment 
a  man  asserts  a  right  as  a  right  he  recognises  social 
law  and  social  obligations,  and  appeals  to  principles 
which  justify  punishment  for  infraction  of  the  law. 
An  anti-social  right  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
In  point  of  fact  it  were  hard  to  conceive  how 
any  man  may  live  within  the  body  of  society 
without  being  a  party  to  the  social  convention. 
From  birth  man  breathes  a  social  atmosphere,  and 
throughout  life,  in  his  acts,  in  his  speech,  in  his 
very  thoughts,  as  we  have  seen,  he  reflects  the 
character  of  the  social  medium, ^  and  assumes, 

>  Thus  the  normal  inner  life  of  reflection,  of  conscience, 
of  meditation,  and  of  the  so-called  "spiritual  ego  "  in  general, 
is  simply,  in  us  human  beings,  an  imitation,  a  brief  abstract 
and  epitome,  of  our  literal  social  life.  We  have  no  habits 
of  self-consciousness  which  are  not  derived  from  social  habits, 
counterparts  thereof. — Josiah  Royce:  Anomalies  of  Self-con- 
sciousness; Psych.  Rev.,  September,  1895. 


I 


174  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


The  State's  Right  to  Punish      175 


however  wild  his  life,  social  obligations.  By 
constantly  asserting  and  enjoying  rights,  which 
are  the  terms  upon  which  the  social  Ufe  is  main- 
tained, he  accepts  those  terms.  He  may  protest 
against  certain  of  the  terms  actually  imposed 
and  denounce  them  as  unjust.  But  the  charge  of 
injustice  has  no  meaning  except  as  implying 
recognition  of  the  just,  or  of  that  which  can  be 
required  as  of  right  and  which  he  is  willing  to  accept. 
To  justify  himself,  therefore,  in  refusing  sub- 
mission to  tribunals  where  justice  is  administered, 
if  such  refusal  be  possible,  he  must  withdraw 
from  the  general  sphere  of  rights.  He  must 
abandon  his  fellow-men  and  fly  to  the  woods 
or  sail  to  some  desert  isle. 

We  repeat,  then,  that  the  right  to  inflict  punish- 
ment is  based,  as  is  every  other  right,  on  the 
constitutional  demand  of  himaan  nature  for  htmaan 
association.  Man's  need  of  society  is  imperative. 
But  society,  without  the  power  to  inflict  pimish- 
ment  for  violation  of  the  terms  of  social  life, 
were  impossible.  Man's  need  of  society  is  there- 
fore no  more  imperative  than  is  the  need  for 
pimishing  infractions  of  social  law.  The  necessity 
is  in  both  cases  the  same,  and  it  is  for  humanity 
supreme. 

And  the  same  considerations  which  make  good 
the  state's  right  to  punish  serve  also  to  define  the 
fimction  and  scope  of  pimitive  laws.  The  office 
of  ptmishment  is  to  preserve  social  order.    The 


state,  or  society  in  its  executive  aspect,  finds  pun- 
ishment necessary  to  prevent  certain  acts  which 
threaten  the  freedom  of  social  life  and  the  integrity 
of  the  state;  and  beyond  what  is  necessary  to 
prevent  such  acts  the  state  has  no  right,  save  in 
educational  discipline,  to  impose  any  penalties  or 
pains  whatever.  It  is  the  social  necessity  which 
confers  the  right  to  punish,  and  the  limit  of  the 
necessity  is  the  limit  of  the  right.  When,  there- 
fore, punishment  is  carried  beyond  this  limit 
the  right  fails  to  go  with  it;  that  is,  the  punish- 
ment ceases  to  be  just,  loses  in  fact  its  character 
as  ptmishment,  and  becomes  a  mere  act  of  retalia- 
tion or  a  wanton  infliction  of  pain. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  proper  aim  of 
punishment  is  the  reformation  of  the  criminal. 
And  it  is  true  that  punishment  would  be  vain  if 
it  did  not  succeed,  to  some  extent  at  least,  in 
repressing  crime,  and  in  so  far  reforming  the 
actual  or  possible  criminal.  In  this  sense  all 
ptmishment  by  the  state  is  reformatory:  it  checks 
the  criminal  intent.  But  to  regard  the  house  of 
correction  as  a  mere  school  for  the  reform  of  the 
actual  offender  tmder  duress  were  to  miss  the 
main  efficacy  of  ptmishment.  The  main  efficacy 
of  ptmishment  is  in  its  force  as  a  threat.  If  the 
effect  of  ptmishment  went  no  further  than  the  con- 
vict we  could  hardly  consider  it  seriously  as  a 
social  remedy  at  all.  But  the  ptmishment  inflicted 
for  crime  committed  acts  as  a  deterrent  in  the 


176  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


minds  of  a  number  of  possible  criminals,  who 
wotdd  cease  to  be  deterred  if  pimishment  were 
robbed  of  its  terrors  and  converted  into  a  mere 
educational  discipline  for  offenders  who  have 
been  caught.  And  the  threat  is  the  more  effective 
because  it  appeals  to  a  social  being  and  looks  to 
the  social  good. 

But  while  the  prevention  of  crime  must  be 
considered  as  the  primary  aim  of  punishment, 
the  reformation  of  the  convicted  criminal  is  an 
important  secondary  aim.  It  is  clearly  in  the 
interest  of  society  no  less  than  of  the  criminal 
that  punishment  should  be  educational,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  educational  without  ceasing  to  be  deterrent. 
Pimishment,  as  a  remedy,  is  an  appeal  to  men's 
fears,  and  while  fear  may  prevent  us  from  doing 
harm  it  cannot  of  itself  operate  as  a  motive  for 
good.  It  may  be  employed,  as  in  the  training 
of  children,  to  induce  the  form  of  the  moral  habit 
pending  the  development  of  a  true  moral  spirit. 
But  fear  alone  cannot  inspire  the  positive  good- 
will which  is  the  essence  of  the  moral  spirit. 
The  effect  of  pimishment  for  good  is  therefore 
negative  and  indirect,  and  if  it  were  possible, 
generally,  to  replace  the  fear  of  pimishment 
by  a  positive  motive  inspiring  good-will,  the  appeal 
to  fear  would  be  but  a  blundering  makeshift. 
It  is  but  a  makeshift  at  best.  Its  justification 
is,  as  we  have  said,  its  necessity.  It  operates 
quickly  where  delay  would  imperil  the  social  oixier, 


The  State's  Right  to  Punish       177 

and  it  operates  in  cases  where  gentler  means, 
the  direct  appeal  to  good-will,  would  be  ineffectual. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  appeal 
to  fear  might  be  made  less  urgent  if  more  attention 
were  given  to  the  instillation  of  just  ideas  and  to 
the  discipline  of  the  will  before  the  criminal  intent 
has  matured  and  the  criminal  habit  is  set,  and  more 
effort  were  made  to  correct  the  conditions  which 
foster  criminal  desires.  Though  the  function  of 
punishment  is  not  primarily  educational,  the 
necessity  of  punishment  might  by  educational 
discipline  and  social  reforms  be  greatly  reduced. 


IS 


Punishment  and  Responsibility    179 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

PUNISHMENT  AND  RESPONSIBILITY 

PUNISHMENT,  it  appears,  is  a  conservative 
device  applied  by  the  state  to  certain  morbid 
conditions  in  the  body  of  society  which  imperil 
social  institutions.  And  its  operation  is  intended 
to  be  general.  Its  direct  purpose  is  neither  to  rem- 
edy the  mischief  actually  done  nor  to  improve 
the  character  of  the  man  who  has  done  it.  Its 
intent  is  broader  than  this.  It  is  meant  to  give 
effect  to  a  permanent  threat  directed  against 
whatever  criminal  tendencies  may  be  lurking  in  the 
corporate  life  of  the  state,  and  to  prevent  such 
tendencies  from  maturing  in  the  criminal  act.  By 
correcting  the  will  it  seeks  to  forestall  the  act. 

The  question  of  punishment  is  thus  a  question 
of  the  artificial  readjustment  of  motives.  The 
moralist  insists,  it  is  true,  that  the  natural  effects 
of  conduct  are  adequate,  without  art  or  coercion 
of  the  state,  to  resolve  the  purpose  of  the  rational 
mind  in  favour  of  virtue.  A  man's  action,  we  are 
told,  evokes  in  the  agent  himself  and  in  his  social 
environment  a  reaction  which  is  certain  and 
sufficient.  But  the  main  impulsion  of  our  minds 
is  instinctive  rather  than  reflective,  and  the  animal 

178 


and  self-regarding  instincts  are  in  most  men  still 
overweighted  or  the  scope  of  the  social  instincts 
is  too  narrow.  As  against  the  train  of  evil 
tendency  or  the  tumult  of  passion,  therefore, 
the  sane  and  social  motive  needs  reinforcement. 
And  such  reinforcement  is  intended  to  be  supplied 
through  fear  of  the  ptmishment  or  pain  which  is 
artificially  subjoined  by  the  state  to  violation 
of  the  social  or  rational  law.* 

It  follows,  now,  since  ptmishment  is  addressed 
to  the  will,  that  none  but  voluntary  acts,  or  acts 
which,  themselves  not  mtended,  are  directly 
traceable  to  volimtary  acts,  are  properly  obnoxious 
to  punishment.  Acts  which  do  not  proceed  from 
the  will  cannot  be  influenced,  of  course,  by  motives 
addressed  to  the  will.  A  hunter  who  kills  his  com- 
panion by  the  accidental  discharge  of  his  gun  does 
not  will  the  death  of  his  friend,  and  is  not  amenable 
therefore  to  the  penalities  which  attach  to  wilful 
homicide.  If  he  was  negligent,  however,  in  the 
handling  of  his  piece,  his  negligence  was  wilftd, 
and,  inasmuch  as  the  result  was  such  as  might 
have  been  foreseen,  deserves  ptmishment  more  or 
less  severe.  So  the  sentinel  who  lies  down  at 
his   post,   and   then   involuntarily   falls   asleep, 

»  L'esprit  de  rhomme  a  devanc6  1' organisation  du  groupe, 
et  Ton  a  t^ch^  de  rem^dier  aux  d^fauts  naturels  de  Thomme 
et  de  la  soci^t^  par  I'organisation  d'une  sanction  artificielle 
destin^e  k  suppler  aux  insuffisances  et  aux  injustices  de 
I'autre  [the  natural  sanction].— F.  Paulhan:  La  Sanction 
Morale;  Rev.  Philos.,  April,  1894,  p.  404. 


i8o  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

may  be  punished,  because  he  knows  when  he 
voluntarily  throws  himself  on  the  ground  the 
difficulty  of  keeping  awake.  The  point  of  appli- 
cation is  in  all  cases  the  will.  The  act  of  the  will 
may  be  remote  from  the  act  reprehended,  but  it 
is  not  too  remote  so  long  as  the  volitional  act  is 
known  by  the  agent  to  be  in  determinative  rela- 
tions with  the  act  for  which  he  is  punished.  And 
it  is  not  too  remote  because  punishment  may 
in  such  cases  be  effective.  Reaching  the  will, 
punishment  reaches  the  known  consequences  of 
the  wilful  act.  Hence  a  man  is  held  in  law  to  will 
the  known  or  probable  consequences  of  any  act 
which  he  wills.  Where,  however,  the  point  of 
application  in  the  will  is  wanting,  where,  for 
instance,  the  consequences  of  an  act  could  not 
have  been  foreseen  or  suspected,  the  threat  of 
punishment  could  not  have  influenced  the  will  to 
act,  and  punishment  would  necessarily  be  futile 
and  therefore  xmjust. 

The  fear  of  punishment,  again,  can  serve  as  a 
deterrent  to  such  minds  alone  as  can  appreciate 
the  relation  between  the  act  and  its  penalty,  that 
is,  can  understand  what  the  punishment  is  for. 
Hence  punishments  enforced  against  ordinary 
offenders  are  not  inflicted  upon  children  or  the 
insane.  Where  the  mind  cannot  perceive  the  in- 
tent of  the  penalty,  or  the  nature  of  the  act  from 
which  the  will  is  to  be  deterred,  the  threat  of  the 
penalty  is  from  the  ixature  of  the  case  inopera- 


Punishment  and  Responsibility    i8i 

tive,  and  punishment  is  a  useless  infliction  of 
pain. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  the  discipline 
of  pain  is  wholly  inapplicable  to  a  defective  or 
imdeveloped  mind.  Such  discipline  we  apply  to 
young  children,  and  a  relatively  low  order  of 
intelligence  can  learn  to  appreciate  a  constant 
relation  between  acts  and  pains.  So  the  horse 
learns  to  mind  the  rein  and  the  retriever  to 
bring  back  his  bird.  But  pains  so  inflicted  are 
educational  rather  than  punitive.  Their  effect 
runs  no  further  than  to  the  creature  that  suffers 
them.  Yet  even  here,  the  object  being  to  induce 
certain  habits  of  action  through  the  education  of 
the  will,  the  relation  of  punishment  to  the  act 
forbidden  must  be  made  plain.  In  other  words 
the  intelligence  of  the  disciplined  mind  must  be 
such  that  when  desire  impels  to  the  act  some 
representation  of  pain  may  be  associated  with  the 
idea  of  the  act. 

Having  briefly  but  perhaps  sufficiently  discussed 
the  purpose  and  scope  of  pimishment,  we  turn  to 
the  question  of  responsibility,  which  is  indeed  but 
another  phase  of  the  question  of  punishment. 

When  an  act  has  been  done  which  on  its  face  is 
punishable  it  is  not  always  apparent  on  whom  the 
punishment  should  fall.  We  ask  then,  who  is 
responsible?  A  bridge  breaks  down,  for  instance, 
when  crossed  by  a  train  of  cars,  and  the  result 
is   an  appalling  loss   of  life.     We  look  for  the 


1 82  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


cause.  We  know,  of  course,  that  the  accident  as  a 
physical  event  is  the  effect  of  many  co-operating 
causes.  These  however  are  of  interest  to  us, 
when  we  undertake  to  fix  the  question  of  respon- 
sibility, only  as  pointing  to  some  volitional  agent 
but  for  whose  act  of  omission  or  commission  the 
accident  would  not  have  happened.  If  it  can 
be  shown  that  the  bridge  was  soimd,  that  the 
abutments  were  firm,  that  the  train  was  pro- 
ceeding at  no  greater  speed  than  ordinary  prudence 
would  suggest;  if,  in  short,  it  appears  that  no  re- 
prehensible or  pimishable  act  formed  an  essential 
element  in  the  composition  of  causes  which  pro- 
duced the  disaster,  the  question  of  responsibility 
is  eliminated.  No  man  is  responsible.  The  act 
is,  in  common-law  language,  the  act  of  God.  If 
it  appears,  however,  that  the  engineer,  anxious 
perhaps  to  make  up  for  lost  time,  was  driving, 
in  disregard  of  his  instructions  or  of  the  dictates 
of  prudence,  at  an  excessive  rate  of  speed,  we  say 
he  is  the  man  on  whom  punishment  should  fall. 
Or  if  he  is  incompetent  we  may  say  that  the  man 
who  appointed  him  should  be  pimished.  Re- 
sponsibility for  the  accident  is  then  fixed. 

The  question  of  responsibility  is  thus  boimd  up 
with  the  question  of  punishment.  Pimishment, 
it  is  true,  may  in  cases  not  classed  as  criminal 
take  the  form  of  mere  reparation,  which,  in  the 
public  administration  of  justice,  is  distinguished 
from  punishment.     But  the  distinction,  though 


Punishment  and  Responsibility    183 

important  in  determining  whether  the  injurious 
agent  shall  be  made  to  suffer  in  purse  or  in  person 
for  the  injury  done,  may  be  disregarded  here. 
Any  man  is  responsible  who  may  properly  be 
punished,  or  in  some  way  made  to  suffer,  for  an  in- 
jurious  act.    The  terms  are  convertible.    The 
general  conditions  under  which  pimishment  may 
justly  be  inflicted  are  therefore  the  general  con- 
ditions which  determine  the  fact  of  responsibility. 
The  offence  must  be  voluntary,  either  directly,  as 
being  the  deed  actually  intended,  or  indirectly, 
through  its  known  or  knowable  relations  to  the  in- 
tentional act;  and  the  aim  of  the  prohibition,  or 
the  threatened  penalty,  must  be  understood.    If 
a  man  by  false  information  which  for  good  reason 
he  believes  to  be  true  misleads  a  traveller  to  his 
hurt,  he  is  not  responsible.     Nor  should  we  hold 
an  idiot  or  a  little  child  responsible  for  setting 
fire  to  a  house.    The  harm  may  be  in  either  case 
as  great  as  if  it  had  been  done  with  full  knowledge 
and  with  deliberate  intent  to  injure.    But  the 
conditions   of  responsibiHty  are  wanting.    The 
injury  done  by  the  false  information  cannot  be 
traced  to  any  fatdt  of  the  will,  and  so  could  not  have 
been  prevented  by  the  introduction  of  motives  de- 
signed to  correct  the  action  of  the  will.    In  cases 
like  that  of  the  idiot  or  the  child,  the  relation 
of  the  act  to  any  penalty  subjoined  to  the  act 
is  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  mind,  and  fear  of  the 
penalty  could  not  operate  therefore  as  a  deterrent 


i84  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

of  the  will.  The  cases  are  not  of  the  kind  to  which 
the  threat  of  punishment  applies;  or,  in  other 
words,  the  agent  is  not  responsible. 

It  may  happen,  however,  where  there  is  no 
doubt  of  the  fact  of  a  man's  responsibility,  that 
there  is  still  some  question  as  to  the  degree  in  which 
he  may  be  held  accountable.  And  the  limits  be- 
tween which  his  accoimtability  may  range  are 
wide.  An  injury  inflicted  as  intended  involves, 
for  a  mind  of  normal  clearness  and  strength, 
complete  responsibility.  An  injury,  on  the  other 
hand,  which  is  but  the  remote  effect  of  an  act  not 
injurious  in  itself  involves  less  responsibility 
than  an  injury  directly  intended ;  and  the  responsi- 
bility will  be  proportionate,  other  things  equal, 
to  the  degree  of  certainty  with  which  the  injurious 
effect  could  have  been  foreseen.  A  guardian  is 
not  required  to  make  good  every  loss  incurred 
through  investment  of  the  funds  of  his  ward. 
But  he  is  bound  to  exercise  care.  A  man  cannot 
foresee  all  the  consequences  of  any  act,  and  he 
must  in  any  case  take  the  risks  of  his  act ;  but  the 
responsibility  of  a  trustee  is  the  greater  as  the 
risk  which  he  takes  as  trustee  is  known,  or  should 
be  known,  to  be  greater. 

But  the  capacity  to  foresee  the  consequences  of 
an  act,  or  to  appreciate  its  risks,  varies  in  any 
given  situation  with  the  intelligence  of  the  agent. 
Standards  of  conduct  also  vary,  as  we  have  seen, 
on  different  levels  of  civilisation.     Strictly  speak- 


Punishment  and  Responsibility    185 

ing,  therefore,  the  degree  of  responsibility  too 
should  show  parallel  differences.  And  a  lately 
reclaimed  savage  would  not,  in  fact,  be  held  in 
a  court  of  morals  to  the  same  rigorous  account- 
ability as  a  graduate  of  the  schools  or  a  man 
versed  in  affairs.  Public  law,  however,  cannot, 
in  ordinary  cases,  recognise  such  a  distinction. 
Any  general  attempt  to  make  such  a  distinction 
would  lead  only  to  confusion,  since  the  law  has 
no  practicable  means  by  which  it  could  classify 
men  generally  in  accordance  with  a  graduated 
scale  of  responsibility.  Much  is  left  nevertheless 
to  the  discretion  of  the  courts.  And  in  the 
exercise  of  this  discretion  the  courts  do  as  a  matter 
of  fact  take  into  consideration,  when  fixing  the 
penalty  for  an  offence,  the  youth,  inexperience, 
and  other  circumstances  bearing  on  the  measure 
of  accoimtability  of  an  offender.  The  law  makes 
its  penalties  more  or  less  elastic  for  the  very 
purpose  of  allowing  this  discretion. 

But  the  limits  of  responsibility  are  not  passed 
when  we  have  passed  the  jurisdiction  of  the  courts. 
There  are  many  acts  prejudicial  to  society  with 
which  the  law  cannot  deal  without  working  greater 
mischief  than  that  which  it  seeks  to  cure.  Ill 
temper,  avarice,  ill-will,  for  instance,  and  even 
good -will  ill  directed,  may  work  irreparable  harm 
without  transgression  of  any  law  which  it  is  practi- 
cable to  enforce ;  and  there  are  social  irregularities 
which  cannot  be  suppressed  without  such  tyran- 


1 86  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

nous  supervision  of  private  affairs  as  would 
put  an  end  to  personal  freedom.  For  such  extra- 
juridical  offences  men  are  responsible  to  society 
in  general,  and  the  only  pimitive  remedy  appli- 
cable in  such  cases  is  that  of  private  censure  or 
of  an  adverse  public  opinion.  But  ptmishment 
in  this  form  loses  something  of  its  artificial 
character.  So  far  as  it  springs  from  an  instinctive 
and  spontaneous  source  rather  than  from  a  cool 
intent  to  pronotmce  the  social  verdict,  it  may  be 
classed  among  the  natural  consequences  of  evil 
conduct.^  On  the  other  hand,  conduct  may  be 
censured  with  much  natural  feeling  and  yet  with 
the  distinct  intent  to  punish  in  society's  name. 
Even  judges  pronounce  sentence  with  a  fervour  of 
indignation.  It  is  not  easy,  therefore,  to  draw 
any  absolute  line  between  the  superposed  and  the 
self-wrought  effects  of  wrong-doing.  We  might 
indeed  apply  the  term  pimishment  to  the  total 
reaction  of  pain  upon  the  evil  or  anti-social  act, 
and  so  persistent  is  our  demand  for  the  punish- 
ment of  wrong  that  we  do  in  fact  so  apply  the 
term.  Whatever  a  man  suffers  for  his  acts  is 
regarded  as  in  punishment  of  his  acts.  The 
criminal  has  to  fear  the  retributive  justice  of  both 
gods  and  men.  But  there  are  practical  reasons 
for  emphasising  the  artificial  character  of  punish- 

»  Compare  Bentham*s  account  of  what  he  calls  the  physical 
and  the  moral  sanctions. — Principles  of  Morals  and  Legisla' 
Hon,  chap,  iii.,  sees,  ii.,  iii.,  v. 


Punishment  and  Responsibility    187 

ment,  as  such,  since  we  may  fail,  regarding  the 
artificial  and  obvious  penalty  as  complete  and 
sufficient,  to  be  impressed  by  the  wide  and  ever 
extending  scope  of  the  natural  outcome  of  evil. 
On  the  other  hand  we  may  cherish  the  illusion, 
when  the  artificial  and  obvious  penalty  is  wanting, 
that  evil  is  immune.  This  is  a  costly  error. 
And  to  avoid  this  error  the  truth  should  be 
grasped  and  firmly  held  that  suffering  follows 
by  inherent  law  both  ignorance  and  wrong;  that 
suffering,  of  pain  or  privation,  is  their  natural 
fruit. 

And  the  bitter  fruit  of  wrong  shotdd  suffice 
to  deter  us  from  wrong.  But  the  bitterness  of  the 
fruit  cannot  be  anticipated  by  all  or  appreciated 
in  the  foretaste.  For  the  ruder  or  more  sensuous 
intelligence  the  pains  of  requital  must  hit  the  sense 
with  strong  and  obvious  impact;  the  natural 
sequence  must  be  accentuated  by  the  heavy 
intonation  of  human  law.  But  by  spirits  more 
finely  touched  the  necessary  issue  of  evil,  in  the 
nature  of  the  agent  no  less  than  in  the  acts  and 
attitude  of  his  fellows,  is  seen  to  be  so  far-reaching 
and  profoimd  that  the  threat  of  the  law  is  by 
comparison  idle.  And  it  is  a  main  part  of  the 
office  of  the  moralist  to  expose  tlxis  natural 
fruitage  of  evil. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


RESPONSIBILITY    AS    RELATED    TO     FREEDOM    AND 

CAUSATION  IN  WILLING 

IT  is  implied  in  the  theory  of  ptmishment  here 
advanced  that  the  voHtional  agent  may  be 
controlled  from  without.  Through  pain  or  the 
threat  of  pain,  the  theory  asserts,  we  undertake 
to  check  or  correct  certain  known  vices  of  volitional 
action,  a  procedure  which  involves  the  causal 
determination  of  the  willing  subject. 

But  causal  determination  is  held  to  be  incom- 
patible with  freedom.  The  causal  sequence,  we 
are  told,  is  a  necessary  sequence,  and  necessity 
is  the  antithesis  of  freedom.  And  with  freedom 
destroyed  what  becomes  of  human  responsibility  ? 
So  far  as  our  doctrine  involves  the  causal  modi- 
fication of  the  will  it  would  seem,  in  the  light  of 
this  objection,  to  cut  away  the  ground  of  freedom 
and  responsibility  aHke.  The  point,  though  much 
labour^,  demands  consideration. 

If  we  examine  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect 
in  the  inorganic  realm  we  find  there,  taking  the 
ordinary  view,  no  room  for  freedom.  Given  the 
cause,  the  effect,  we  say,  must  follow:  the  effect 
is  determined  in  form  and  made  necessary  as  an 

i88 


Responsibility  and  Freedom      189 


event  by  the  cause.  Like  causes,  we  observe, 
acting  under  like  conditions  yield  invariably  like 
results;  and,  impressed  by  the  certainty  of  this 
sequence,  we  conceive  of  the  effect  as  controlled 
through  some  external  necessity  imposed  by  the 
cause.  Heat,  we  commonly  say,  makes  metals 
expand;  the  wind  sweeps  the  sea,  driving  the 
waves  in  its  fury  and  dashing  them  helpless  on  the 
shore ;  and  our  whole  planetary  system  is  controlled 
by  the  irresistible  might  of  the  sun.  That  is  to 
say,  we  impute  to  the  cause  a  certain  coercive  force 
which,  acting  upon  some  weaker  body,  constrains 
it,  as  it  were  in  the  sheer  arrogance  of  power, 
to  the  production  of  the  effect. 

But  the  record  of  the  causal  event  is  scarcely 
so  simple.  Abstracting  from  the  fact  that  the 
imiversal  system  is  the  permanent  condition  of  all 
causation,  the  cause  as  agent  is  powerless  to 
produce  its  effect  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
reagent  or  of  the  material  upon  which  it  acts. 
Even  in  merely  mechanical  action  the  body  which 
seems  to  be  overborne  is  represented  to  the  ftdl 
extent  of  its  nature  and  power.  Action  and 
reaction  are  equal.  The  effect  is  in  all  physical 
events  the  resultant  of  the  action  of  agent  and 
reagent  both,  and  the  stress  of  our  assumption 
that  the  effect  must  perforce  follow  its  cause  is 
simply  the  strength  of  our  conviction  that  things 
will  act  invariably  according  to  their  nature. 
The  necessity  is  in  our  thought.    What  we  see 


190  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

IS  uniformity  of  action  under  uniformity  of  con- 
ditions :  the  methods  of  nature  are  constant.  With- 
out this  constancy,  in  fact,  there  were  neither 
natm-e  nor  the  thought  of  nature;  and  we  think 
an  effect  of  a  certain  kind  must  follow  a  cause  of 
a  certain  kind,  when  the  conditions  are  the  same, 
because  that  is  what  invariably  happens.  The 
necessity  imposed  upon  our  thought  by  the  nature 
of  things  we  in  turn  impute  to  nature.  The 
effect  appears  as  the  tritunph  of  a  tyrannous  and 
irresistible  cause.* 

The  consequence  of  this  habit  of  our  thought  is 
to  divest  every  natural  object  of  its  particular 
nature  and  force.  Overlooking  the  power  im- 
manent in  each  several  thing,  and  referring 
it  always  to  some  external  or  antecedent  thing, 

«  Metaphysical  or  philosophical  necessity  is  nothing  dif- 
ferent from  .  .  .  certainty. — ^Jonathan  Edwards:  The  Will, 
part  I,  sec.  3. 

What  is  our  idea  of  necessity,  when  we  say  that  two  objects 
are  necessarily  connected  together?  .  .  .  After  a  frequent 
repetition,  I  find,  that  upon  the  appearance  of  one  of  the 
objects,  the  mind  is  determined  by  custom  to  consider  its 
usual  attendant,  and  to  consider  it  in  a  stronger  light 
upon  account  of  its  relation  to  the  first  object.  'T  is  this 
impression,  then,  or  determination,  which  affords  me  the  idea 
of  necessity. — Hume:  A  Treatise  0}  Human  Nature,  book 
i.,  part  iii.,  sec.  xiv. 

All  that,  strictly  speaking,  we  know  of  the  material  universe 
is  this  succession  of  events.  .  .  .  The  principle  or  virtue  by 
which  one  event  is  conjoined  to  another  we  never  see. — 
William  Godwin :  Enquiry  concerning  Political  Justice,  vol.  i., 
p.  367.     (London,  1796.) 


Responsibility  and  Freedom      191 

we  virtually  deny  that  power  aaywhere  is,  while 
affirming  that  it  is  always  produced.  Coming 
from  everywhere,  we  seem  to  say,  it  is  yet  resident 
nowhere. 

There  must  be  some  misunderstanding  here. 
Every  element  or  object  is  what  it  is  in  virtue 
of  its  constitution  as  an  origin  of  force  reacting 
to  aU  impinging  force,  and  whatever  the  relations 
into  which   it   enters,   through   constructive   or 
destructive  change,  it  acts  in  accordance  with 
this  constitution.     It  were  as  legitimate  therefore 
to  maintain  that  its  action,  being  the  spontaneous 
expression  of  its  nature,  is  always  free,  as  to  insist 
that  the  power  in  presence  of  which  it  thus  ex- 
presses  its   nature   necessitates   or  controls   its 
action.    Take  a  case  in  illustration.     We  find 
enumerated  among  the  properties  of  water  that 
it  solidifies,   under  ordinary  pressure,   at  zero, 
Centigrade,  and  boils  at  one  hundred  degrees'; 
that  it  is  neither  acid  nor  alkaline  in  its  action 
on  vegetable  colours ;  that  it  is  a  poor  conductor 
of  heat.    These  and  other  properties  constitute 
its  nature.     But  how  shall  it  arrive  at  the  ex- 
pression of  this  nattu-e?    How  may  it  exhibit 
its  properties,  or  even  as  water  exist?    Clearly 
only  in  the  presence  of  conditions.     Hence  the 
presence  of   conditions,  including  what  we  call 
the  cause,  may  as  fitly  be  conceived  to  offer  the 
opportunity  for  action  as  to  impose  the  necessity 
for  action.      We  may  say,  indifferently,  that  at 


192  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

zero,  Centigrade,  water  will  freeze,  or  that  at  zero, 
Centigrade,  water  must  freeze ;  we  may  regard  the 
transformation  as  a  spontaneous  expression  of 
the  natiire  of  water,  or  we  may  regard  it  as  neces- 
sitated by  a  fall  in  the  temperature  of  the  air. 
The  fact  is  in  either  case  the  same.  The  difference 
is  merely  a  difference  in  our  attitude  towards 

the  fact. 

In  the  inorganic  world  then,  we  may  say, 
the  concept  of  necessity  and  the  concept  of  freedom 
coalesce.  But  we  learn  from  this  discussion  that 
the  concept  of  freedom  is  relative  to  our  idea  of 
the  nature  of  the  thing  whose  freedom  is  in  ques- 
tion. And  we  have  so  little  to  say,  in  general, 
of  the  freedom  of  things  inorganic  for  the  reason 
that  the  thing  and  its  nature  are  in  our  minds  so 
completely  identified  that  the  question  whether 
the  thing  will  act  according  to  its  nattire  does  not 
arise.  Iron,  gold,  feldspar,  and  quartz  exhibit 
everywhere  their  well-known  properties.  They 
are  always  what  we  conceive  it  is  their  nature  to 
be,  and  nothing  occurs  to  them  to  disengage  the 
idea  of  freedom."  The  whole  inorganic  world  is 
conceived  as  fast  bound  to  the  chain  of  Necessity, 
without  so  much  as  a  struggle  to  be  free. 

In  the  organic  world,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
nature  or  type  under  which  the  individual  is 
conceived  is  such  that  the  individual  only  in  rare 
cases  fully  exemplifies  the  type.  The  individual 
and  the  type  are  thus  disengaged  in  idea,  and  the 


Responsibility  and  Freedom      193 

actual   organism    is    compared    and    contrasted 
with  the  type.    It  is  the  nature  of  the  germ  to 
expand  into  the  tree;  of  the  tree,  to  bear  fruit. 
But  the  germ  may  never  unfold,  the  tree  may 
be  blasted  before  it  matures.    We  look  at  the 
organism  as  it  were  from  within,  and  if  it  unfolds 
according  to  the  conceptual  form  which  we  regard 
as  its  nature  we  look  upon  its  growth  and  expan- 
sion as  free.     On  the  other  hand,  if  from  any 
external  cause,  that  is,  from  any  cause  by  us  dis- 
tinguished from  this  inner  and  natural  tendency, 
the  organism  is  checked  in  the  expression  of  its 
nature,  or  fails  to  become  what  imder  favouring 
influences  it  tends  to  become,  we  regard  it  as 
restrained  of  its  freedom. 

It  is  in  the  organic  world,  therefore,  that  the 
concept  of  freedom  first  acquires  practical  signifi- 
cance.  We  assimie  in  the  organism  a  principle 
tending  to  express  itself  in  characteristic  form  and 
to  accomplish  a  definite  cycle  of  change,  and  it  is 
to  this  principle,  identified  with  the  nature  of  the 
organism,  that  the  concept  refers.  Freedom  is 
the  unobstructed  working  of  this  principle; 
any  impairment  of  the  activity  of  this  principle 
is  an  impairment  of  freedom.  The  plant,  for 
example,  which  has  earth,  air,  sunUght,  and  mois- 
tme  in  abundance  expands,  as  we  say,  naturally 
or  freely,  and  exhibits  in  completeness  the  charac- 
ters of  its  type.  If  it  is  parched  by  drought,  or 
eaten  by  pests,  or  crowded  by  too  thrifty  neigh- 


194  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

boiirs,  or  otherwise  fails  of  the  opportunity  which 
its  ftdl  development  demands,  its  freedom  is 
abridged,  or,  in  other  words,  it  lives  a  cramped  and 
**unnaturar'  life. 

And  so  in  respect  of  all  organised  being.  The 
individual  is  regarded  as  the  seat  of  a  distinctive 
principle  which  constitutes  its  proper  nature, 
and  which  it  tends  as  it  develops  to  exemplify 
in  full  character  and  detail.  And  the  freedom 
of  the  individual  is  freedom  or  opportunity  to 
follow  this  tendency  unthwarted. 

Meantime,  whatever  complexity  we  find  in  the 
nature  of  the  organism,  we  discover,  as  we  have 
already  had  occasion  to  say,  no  break  in  the 
network  of  causes  which  binds  the  individual 
system  to  the  system  of  nature  in  general.  Action 
and  reaction  are  as  constant  and  uniform  here, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  as  in  the  inorganic  world. 
And  yet  there  is  nothing  in  this  causal  activity 
which  annuls  the  possibility  of  freedom  as  we  have 
defined  it.  Causation  is,  in  fact,  implied  in 
such  freedom.  Without  the  action  and  reaction 
which  bind  the  organism  in  causal  relations  with 
the  general  system  of  nature  the  organism  would 
have  no  opportunity  to  exhibit  or  unfold  its  in- 
dividual nature,  or,  in  other  words,  to  assert 
its  freedom.^ 

>  En  dehors  de  toute  consideration  morale,  la  liberty  dont 
la  pratique  a  besoin  est  compatible  avec  le  d^terminisme: 
elle  n'est  qu'une  forme  sup^rieure  de  d^terminisme  conscient. 
— A.  Fouill^:  Revue  Philosophique,  May,  1895,  p.  462. 


Responsibility  and  Freedom      195 

The  opposition  between  causation  and  freedom 
thus  disappears.    It  is  only  when   freedom  is 
conceived  in  a  different  and,  as  we  must  insist, 
an  illicit  sense,  namely,  as  affirmed  of  the  action  of 
a  causeless  cause,  that  any  incompatibility  is  seen. 
Yet  this  illicit  use  of  the  term  is  not  without  some 
show  of  support  in  the  facts.     In  conscious  sys- 
tems, that  is,  on  the  higher  levels  of  organic  ac- 
tivity, the  action  of  the  environment  may  undergo 
in  the  organism  a  metamorphosis  so  complete 
that  its  causal  efficacy  is  in  great  part  veiled 
from  our  observation.     And  the  metamorphosis 
is  the  more  complete  the  nearer  we  approach 
the  human  type.    About  the  doings  of  man,  in 
fact,  our  ignorance  leaves  a  breadth  of  obscure  or 
unseen  activity  so  great  that  it  seems  to  exempt 
his  will  from  causal  influence,  and  lends  to  his 
volitional  acts  the  appearance  of  complete  spon- 
taneity. 1    Man  comes  and  goes,  lies  down  and 
rises  up,  as  seems  good  to  him.    He  moves  at  the 
suggestion  of  his  own  ideas,  which  occur  with- 
out apparent  excitation  from  without;   and  yet, 
while  the  acts  which  they  prompt  cannot  be 
traced  to  the  system  of  nature  as  effect,  they  enter 
into  the  system  of  nature  so  effectively  as  cause 

>  Ex  his  enim  sequitur  .  .  .  quod  homines  se  Uberos 
esse  opinentur.  quandoquidem  suarum  volitionum  suique 
appetitus  sunt  conscii,  et  de  causis,  a  quibus  disponuntur  ad 
appetendum  et  volendum.  quia  earum  sunt  ignari,  ne  per 
somnmm  cogitant.-Spinoza:  Ethices,  parsi.,  prop,  xxxvi.,  ap. 


196  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

that  the  will  is  sometimes  assumed  to  be  the 
original  type  of  a  cause.  There  is  in  human 
volition  what  thus  appears  to  be  an  absolute 
initiative :  the  will  seems  to  be  a  causeless  cause. 
And  this  apparent  initiative  is  identified  with 

our  freedom.^ 

We  have  in  this  interpretation  of  himian  action 
the  antithesis  of  what  we  found  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  activities  of  the  inorganic  world .  There 
we  saw  the  external  view  prevailing  to  the  exclusion 
of  freedom.  Here  we  find  the  internal  view,  out 
of  which  the  concept  of  freedom  arises,  occupying 
the  thought  so  completely  that  it  excludes  the 
concept  of  causation,  with  the  necessity  which  it  is 
supposed  to  involve,  as  inappHcable  to  the  genesis 
of  the  will.  But  the  break  in  the  continuity  of 
the  causal  sequence  is  merely  the  presumption 
of  our  ignorance.  No  actual  break  has  ever  been 
shown,  and  our  practice  implies  that  there  is  no 
break.  We  assume  in  our  penal  and  educational 
institutions,  for  example,  that  volitional  action 
may  be  modified  by  discipUne  and  pimishment, 
and  the  whole  procedure  of  civilised  commimities 
rests  on  the  asstmiption  that  volition,  as  a  psy- 

«  The  metaphysical  theory  of  free-will,  as  held  by  phi- 
losophers (for  the  practical  feeling  of  it,  common  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree  to  all  mankind,  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with 
the  contrary  theory),  was  invented  because  the  supposed 
alternative  of  admitting  human  actions  to  be  necessary,  was 
deemed  inconsistent  with  every  one's  instinctive  conscious- 
iiess—J.  S.  Mill:  Logic,  book  vi.,  chap.  ii. 


Responsibility  and  Freedom      197 

cho-physical  fact,  is  subject  to  causal  influence. 
Where  there  appears  to  be  a  break  we  simply 
follow  our  clue  as  far  as  it  leads  us,  and  lose 
it.    There  are  gaps  indeed  in  our  knowledge  of 
the  connection  of  merely  physical  events,  but  as 
each  accession  to  our  knowledge  of  physical  nature 
reduces  the  number  of  such  gaps  we  have  come 
to  infer  the  causal  sequence  even  where  we  cannot 
trace  it.    And  as  we  have  reason  to  believe  that 
psychical  changes  are  related,  through  the  cor- 
poreal system,  with  the  general  system  of  nature, 
the  conclusion  seems  inevitable  that  nature,  organic 
or  inorganic,  brutish  or  human,  is  everywhere 
what  we  find  her  to  be  wherever  we  can  follow 
her,  a  body  of  unbroken  tissue,  all  of  one  piece. 
We  hold  then  that  human  volitional  action 
relates  backwards  as  well   as  forwards  in  the 
causal  system.    It    is    consequent    as    well    as 
antecedent.    And  yet  there  is  a  germ  of  truth 
in  this  doctrine  of  the  hiunan  initiative  which 
we  ought  not  to  miss.    The  activity  of  nature 
implies  interacting  elements,  and  in  that  universal 
interaction  which  constitutes  the  life  of  nature 
each  element,  as  we  have  said,  must  be  regarded 
as  a  seat  or  origin  of  power.     Such  original  power 
we  must  recognise  in  the  psycho-physical  activity 
of  man.    We  cannot  assume,  of  course,  that  human 
power  is  original  in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  absolute 
addition  to  the  imiversal  sources  of  power.    We 
must  conceive  it  as  coming  with  the  elements  of 


198  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


which  human  nature  is  compounded .  But  while  it 
may  be  regarded  as  co-ordinate  with  all  the 
manifestations  of  power  in  nature,  it  has  in  its 
human  investment  a  distinctively  human  initiative 
and  character,  and  gives  new  direction,  depending 
on  its  himian  quality,  to  the  forces  on  which  it 
reacts.  It  is  in  this  sense  an  original  factor  in  the 
processes  of  nature's  continuous  creation. 

And  it  is  as  such  a  causal  factor  that  human 
nature  manifests  its  freedom.  Indeed  it  could 
neither  act  nor  assert  its  freedom,  which  is  free- 
dom to  act,  imless  it  were  in  causal  relations  with 
the  system  of  nature.  All  that  we  need,  then, 
to  resolve  the  antithesis  between  freedom  and 
causation  is  a  just  conception  of  freedom.  Free- 
dom, as  we  have  said,  presupposes  causation, 
and  appears  wherever  the  distinctive  nature  of 
the  individual  appears.  There  is  no  organism  in 
fact  which  does  not  transmute  impinging  force 
in  its  own  sense  and  so  assert  its  nature  and 
its  freedom.  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns 
or  figs  of  thistles,  and  the  wolf  does  not  surprise 
us  with  the  characters  of  the  lamb.  Each  acts 
as  it  is  its  nature  to  act.  And  the  more  com- 
plex or  highly  developed  this  nature,  the  more 
potent  it  is  in  giving  direction  to  the  reactions 
of  which  it  is  the  seat,  and  the  more  significant 
is  the  question  of  freedom.  Its  potence  is  greatest 
therefore  in  the  conscious  activity  of  man.  And 
there  too  freedom  is  most  apparent. 


CHAPTER  XX 

HUMAN  FREEDOM  RELATED  TO  THE  EXECUTION  OF 
THE  VOLITIONAL  IDEA 

WE  have  seen  that  the  external  or  exciting 
causes  to  which  human  nature  reacts  un- 
dergo in  the  human  system  a  process  of  elabora- 
tion so  complex  and  recondite  that  their  part 
in  volitional  action  cannot  always  be  traced.  But 
we  cannot  because  of  this  obscurity  deny  the 
existence  of  such  causes.  We  must  allow,  unless 
we  are  prepared  to  isolate  the  system,  that  they 
are  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  the  conscious 
organism  in  its  fractional  life.  They  are  the 
threads  by  which  its  tissue,  so  to  speak,  is  inter- 
laced with  the  system  of  nature  in  general. 

But  the  human  system  is  conscious  only  in  part. 
Its  conscious  activity  is  boimd  up  with  the  ac- 
tivity of  a  physical  system  which  performs  certain 
fimctions  without  conscious  direction,  and  may 
be  treated  as  having  a  nature  of  its  own,  tend- 
ing only  to  its  own  conservation  and  thus  con- 
stituting an  object  of  study  by  itself.  The 
physiologist  and  the  physician  may  properly 
consider  whether  this  system,  the  body,  is  freely 

developing  its  nature;  whether,  in  other  words, 

199 


if 

i 
i 


m; 


It 


200  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


3P^ 


it  IS  in  a  state  of  health.  That  is  a  question  of 
pathology  or  of  hygiene. 

But  the  ethical  student  is  directly  concerned 
only  with  the  conscious  activity  of  man,  and, 
specifically,  with  the  field  of  volitional  action.  We 
must  admit,  of  course,  that  the  relation  between 
the  two  systems,  the  physical  and  the  psychical, 
is  extremely  close.  In  fact  they  are  set  apart 
only  for  the  purpose  of  special  study,  and  constitute 
together  but  a  single  system,  the  state  of  the  body 
being  sometimes  quite  obviously  represented  in  the 
direction  of  the  will.  The  composition  of  the 
blood,  the  flow  of  the  secretions,  the  relation  of 
waste  to  nutrition,  are  all,  as  they  are  normal  or 
abnormal,  reflected  in  the  tone  of  our  conscious 
states,  and  through  the  relation  of  the  accom- 
panying sensations  to  the  current  of  our  thoughts 
may  influence  volitional  action.  But  physical 
conditions  arrest  our  attention  only  when  they  are 
morbid,  and  then  we  seek  medical  advice.  The 
ethical  student  has  enough  to  engage  his  attention 
when  the  physical  conditions  may  be  assumed  to 
be  normal. 

The  field  of  ethical  inquiry,  then,  is  the  will 
rather  than  the  physical  basis  of  the  will.  Human 
nature,  for  us,  is  consciotis  human  nature  seeking 
satisfaction  in  the  realisation  of  ends  which  it  has 
consciously  chosen  and  demanding  freedom  to 
pursue  its  ends.  But  in  referring  to  the  will  we 
do  not  intend  that  it  shall  be  regarded  as  a  separ- 


Freedom  and  the  Volitional  Idea 


20I 


able  entity  or  power,  having  a  distinguishable 
nature  within  the  nature  of  the  individual  con- 
scious subject.    Apart  from  this  subject  it  has 
neither  nattire  nor  freedom  of  its  own.    The  will 
is,  in  other  words,  the  individual  conscious  sub- 
ject, the  man,  addressing  himself  to  action,  and 
the  freedom  of  the  will  is  the  freedom  of  the  man 
to  advance  to  his  ends  or  to  execute  his  volitional 
idea.i    What  we  call  the  mandate  of  the  will 
is  in  fact  nothing  but  this  idea,  inhibiting  within 
the  subject  all  influences  or  ideas  incompatible 
with  itself,  and  advancing  by  a  constitutional  law 
to  its  own  accompUshment.    And  for  our  purpose, 
the  volitional  idea  embodies,  for  the  time  being! 
the  **nature"  of  the  man. 

For  us,  then,  the  will  is  the  man.  And,  bearing 
in  mind  that  it  is  the  freedom  of  the  man  as  willing 
and  not  of  any  hypostatised  entity  called  Will 
that  is  in  question,  let  us  look  at  some  of  the  cases 
as  they  confront  us  in  practice.     Under  what 

»  To  talk  of  liberty  or  the  contrary  as  belonging  to  the 
very  will  itself  is  not  to  speak  good  sense.  For  the  will  itself 
is  not  an  agent  that  has  a  will.  .  .  .  That  which  has  the 
power  of  volition  or  choice  is  the  man  or  the  soul.— Jonathan 
Edwards:  The  Will,  part  i,  sec.  v. 

Liberty  belongs  not  to  the  wiU  .  .  .  but  to  the  agent 
or  man.— Locke:   Human  Understanding,  book  2,  chap  xxi 
sec.  20-3 1.  '• 

But  in  all  instances,  the  proper  subject,  that  which  acts 
^  is  acted  on,  is  not  the  faculty  or  the  organ,  but  the  Unitary 
Ego.  This  Ego  knows;  the  Ego  wills;  the  Ego  /^e/5.— James 
Martineau:  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  vol.  ii.,  p.  13 


VA 


;'I;M 


m  i 


if  I 


ii 


202  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

conditions  may  we  say  that  the  will  is  free,  and 
under  what  conditions  is  its  freedom  impaired  ? 
^  Where  the  restraint  is  simply  physical  the  case 
presents  no  difficulty.  A  man  bound  hand  and 
foot  or  shut  up  within  four  walls  has  lost  his  free- 
dom. And  he  regains  his  freedom,  that  is,  the 
will  to  move,  or  to  execute  any  act  which  such 
restraint  makes  impossible,  is  free  when  his 
fetters  are  struck  off  or  the  prison  door  is  opened. 
Here  there  is  nothing  to  suggest  any  distinction 
of  the  will  from  the  man.  When  the  body,  which  is 
the  immediate  instrument  of  volition,  is  restrained 
the  will  too,  however  we  view  it,  is  restrained: 
it  cannot  advance  to  its  ends;  and  in  ordinary 
parlance  it  would  be  said,  as  we  also  should  say, 
the  man  cannot  have  his  will.^ 

1  By  "liberty  "  is  understood,  according  to  the  proper  signi- 
fication of  the  word,  the  absence  of  external  impediments: 
which  impediments  may  oft  take  away  part  of  a  man's  power 
to  do  what  he  would.— Thomas  Hobbes:  Leviathan,  chap.  xiv. 

In  this,  then,  consists  freedom,  viz.,  in  our  being  able  to 
act  or  not  to  act,  according  as  we  shall  choose  or  will. — Locke: 
Human  Understanding,  book  ii.,  chap,  xxi.,  sec.  27. 

The  plain  and  obvious  meaning  of  the  words  Freedom  and 
Liberty,  in  common  speech,  is  power,  opportimity,  or  advan- 
tage, that  any  one  has,  to  do  as  he  pleases.  Or  in  other  words, 
his  being  free  from  hindrance  or  impediment  in  the  way  of 
doing  or  conducting  in  any  respect  as  he  wills. — Edwards: 
The  Will,  sec.  v. 

By  liberty,  then,  we  can  only  mean  a  power  of  acting  or 
not  acting  according  to  the  determinations  of  the  will;  that  is, 
if  we  choose  to  remain  at  rest,  we  may;  if  we  choose  to  move, 
we  also  may.     Now  this  hypothetical  liberty  is  universally 


Freedom  and  the  Volitional  Idea  203 

So  far  with  respect  to  physical  restraint.    But 
even  where  there  is  no  physical  restraint,  but 
merely  the  dread  of  it,  the  coercion  is  scarcely 
distinguished  in  practice  from  that  which  is  in 
fact  physical.    So  also  when  through  fear  of  pain 
or  the  dread  of  death  a  man  is  driven,  at  the  point 
of  the  pistol  for  instance,  to  give  up  his  purse  or 
open  a  safe.    The   fear  of  death  is  of  course 
psychical,  as  is  also  the  fear  of  pain  and  even  the 
sense  of  pain.    But  the  mental  recoil  from  the 
idea  of  pain  or  restraint  or  death  is  in  such  close 
relations  with  the  instinctive  or  reflex  movements 
of  the  body  that  the  coercion  where  such  dread 
is  inspired  is  conceived  as  physical.    At  any  rate 
it  leaves  the  actions  of  the  man  only  in  a  limited 
sense  under  volitional  control.  ^    There  is  a  certain 
range  of  conscious  action,  varying  in  breadth  from 
man  to  man,  which  is  so  completely  organised 
in  accord  with  the  physical  principle  of  self- 
conservation  that  it  is  practically  outside  of  the 
field  of  volitional  choice.    At  the  muzzle  of  a  gun 
the  average  man  has  no  will.    That  is  to  say. 


allowed  to  belong  to  every  one  who  is  not  a  prisoner  and  in 
chains. — David  Hume:  Inquiry  concerning  Human  Under' 
standing,  sec.  viii. 

In  speaking  of  agents  as  free,  it  is  intended  to  declare  them 
free  from  compulsion  or  constraint  by  extraneous  force, 
and  free  for  actions  resulting  from  their  own  nature  and 
constitution.— Shadworth  H.  Hodgson:  Metaphysics  of  Ex- 
perience,  vol.  iv.,  book  iii.,  chap,  vi.,  p.  125. 

«  Aristotle:  Eth.  Nic.,  iii.,  i.,  3. 


* , 


\i' 


i'lU  ■ 


11; 


204  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

he  abandons  his  own  volitional  ends  to  satisfy 
those  of  another.    He  is  not  free. 

In  case  of  moral  restraint,  however,  the  situation 
is  not  so  clear.  Here  the  restraining  influence  is 
the  idea  not  of  physical  restrictions  or  pains  but 
of  the  attitude  of  another  mind.  The  boy  who 
shrinks  from  the  censure  of  his  teacher  or  the 
jeers  of  his  companions,  the  duellist  who  fights 
lest  he  should  be  called  a  coward,  the  writer  or 
speaker  who  shifts  his  position  imder  the  criticism 
of  his  public,  yields  to  this  sort  of  restraint.  In 
some  cases,  however,  such  influence  ceases  to  be 
regarded  as  coercive.  It  may  convince  or  per- 
suade, that  is,  the  will  may  be  changed,  or  adopt  a 
new  end,  as  the  result  of  criticism  or  comment. 
And  if  the  will  itself  is  changed,  if  the  man  adopts 
a  new  volitional  idea,  his  freedom  in  willing  must 
be  judged  as  in  relation  to  the  end  which  he  now 
seeks  and  which  now  represents  his  nature. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  ** adopting*'  an  end? 
And  why,  when  pain  or  the  dread  of  pain,  physical 
or  moral,  deflects  the  will,  should  we  not  assume 
that  the  will  here  also  adopts  a  new  end,  namely, 
to  avoid  the  pain,  and  freely  follows  this  end? 

The  concept  of  freedom  seems  to  be  properly 
applicable  to  the  willing  subject  or  the  ego  only 
as  the  ego  advances  unimpeded  to  ends  in  which 
it  seeks  positive  satisfaction.  Pain  prompts  to 
nothing  but  measures  for  relief  from  pain,  and 
the  satisfaction  afforded  by  such  relief  is  pleasant 


Freedom  and  the  Volitional  Idea    205 

only  by  comparison  with  the  pain.     For  distinc- 
tion's sake  we  may  call  this  negative  satisfaction. 
When,  however,  the  field  of  choice  is  open  the 
subject  pursues  such  ends  alone  as  in  themselves 
or  in  their  pursuit  yield   pleasure  or   positive 
satisfaction.   Pain  is  thus  conceived  as  alien  to  the 
will,  and  when  pain  is  the  incentive  to  action  it 
is  regarded  as  obstructing  or  coercing  the  willj 
it  distracts  it  from  ends  which  the  man  would 
piu-sue  in  the  unhampered  discharge  of  his  fimc- 
tions,   which  alone    yields  positive   satisfaction. 
Pain  implies,  in  fact,  an  obstruction  of  function. 
A  volitional  end  changed  by  the  dread  of  pain, 
which  dread  is  in  itself  painftil,  is  thus  a  thwarted 
end,  and  indicates,  so  far  as  it  goes,  that  violence 
is  done  to  the  nature  of  the  man.     And  he  is, 
so  far,  restrained  of  his  freedom.     Where  the 
man  on  the  other  hand,  is  convinced  or  per- 
suaded, he  pursues  a  new  end,  that  is,  seeks  a 
new  form  of  positive  satisfaction,  and  thus  makes 
the  new  end   his  own.      Hence  we  say  that  he 
* 'adopts*'  the   new  end.      In   fact   we  do   not 
consider  that  he  is  convinced  or  persuaded  until 
he  is  satisfied  to  take  the  new  attitude,  or  sees  in 
the  pursuit  of  the  new  end  an  opportunity  for 
activities  in  which  he  takes  pleasure.    And  so 
long  as  the  new  volitional  impulse  is  unimpeded 
in  its  course  to  the  new  object  he  is  free. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  discussion,  then,  we 
conceive  that  the  nature  of  the  ego  is  expressed 


■  ■ 


! 


i  ; 


,  i 


i; ; 


I 


206   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

in  the  free  activity  of  the  will,  or  in  the  tinim- 
peded  advance  from  the  vohtional  idea  to  some 
end  or  object  which  the  ego  finds  satisfaction  or 
pleasure  in  pursuing.  It  is  not  to  be  confoimded, 
therefore,  with  the  supposed  general  character  or 
average  tendency  of  the  will.  Nor  can  we,  in  this 
inquiry,  identify  it  with  what  we  call  the  man's 
better  nature.^  Freedom  of  the  will  is  freedom 
to  act.  We  might  say  that  it  is  freedom  to  choose, 
but  restriction  of  choice  means  only  that  in  cer- 
tain cases  the  man  is  not  free  to  act  as  he  will.  2 
And  for  the  purpose  of  determining  whether  the 
willing  subject  is  or  is  not  free  the  will  must  be 
defined  by  its  actual  end  or  aim  as  expressed  in  the 
volitional  idea.  The  will,  in  relation  to  freedom, 
is  the  will  to  advance  to  a  certain  end.^  The  end 
may  be  near  or  remote,  simple  or  complex  j 
its  attainment  may  involve  the  discharge  of  great 

>  It  is  clear  that  if  we  say  that  a  man  is  a  **free"  agent 
in  so  £ar  as  he  acts  rationally,  we  cannot  also  say — in  the 
same  sense — that  it  is  by  his  own  "free "  choice  that  he  acts 
irrationally,  when  he  does  so  act. — H.  Sidgwick:  Methods  of 
Ethics^  book  i.,  chap,  v.,  sec.  i. 

»  Freiheit  ist  die  Fahigkeit  eines  Wesens  durch  selbst- 
bewusste  Motive  unmittelbar  in  seinen  Handlungen  bestimmt 
zu  werden.  .  .  .  Nicht  dass  eine  Wahl  stattfindet,  sondem 
dass  die  Wahl  selbst  eine  freie  sei,  erscheint  tms  als  das  wahre 
Kennzeichen  einer  freien  Handlung. — W.  Wundt;  Ethik: 
dritter  abschn.,  erstes  cap.,  3,  a,  S.  397-398. 

3  Sans  doute,  quand  nous  essayons  de  nous  repr&enter 
le  vouloir,  nous  n'y  parvenons  qu'en  I'incorporant  dans  un 
objet, — d6sir  de  telle  chose,  vouloir  de  telle  mouvement. — A. 
Fouillde:  Rev.  Philos.,  June,  1892,  p.  584. 


Freedom  and  the  Volitional  Idea    207 

muscular  energy,  with  violent  incursion  into  the 
world  of  things,  or  it  may  involve  no  more  than  the 
play  of  the  features  or  the  utterance  of  a  word. 
But  the  will,  whatever  its  end,  is  the  will  to  do; 
and  the  end,  however  vague,  must  be  so  far  dis- 
tinguished that  it  may  determine  the  conscious 
activity  in  one  direction  rather  than  in  another. 
To  the  will  in  general,  or  to  the  will  as  the 
mere  abstract  possibility  of  willing,  which,  hypo- 
statised  as  the  Will,  has  imported  so  much  con- 
fusion into  ethical  inquiry,  the  question  of  freedom 
is  irrelevant.  1    Freedom,  we  repeat,  applies  to 
the  will  only  as  the  man  willing  addresses  himself 
to  the  attainment  of  some  end  so  far  defined  as  to 
influence  his  conduct.    And  if  the  man,  seeking 
satisfaction  in  an  end  which  he  wills,  or  making 
the  end  his  own,  may  without  let  or  hindrance 
accomplish  his  will,  he  is  in  his  willing  free; 
so  far  as  he  is  obstructed  in  the  attainment  of 
his  end,  he  is  restrained  of  his  freedom. 

It  is  perhaps  important  to  note,  further,  that 
volition  is  not  to  be  conceived  as  a  process  in  vacuo. 
As  we  have  said,  the  social  environment  is  always 
presupposed.  And  the  pressure  of  social  opinion 
is  felt  in  advance  of  any  particular  determination 
of  the  will.  A  body  of  traditions,  tendencies, 
and  judgments  presses  upon  the  individual  before 
he  addresses  himself  to  the  achievement  of  any 

>  To  will  in  general  is  impossible.— F.  H.  Bradley:  Ethical 
Studies,  p.  139.     (Anast.  reprint.) 


2o8   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

given  end.  And  this  pressure  is  constant.  How, 
then,  can  the  will  of  the  social  unit,  formed  under 
this  constant  pressure,  be  in  any  sense  free? 
We  can  only  answer  that  as  a  certain  atmospheric 
pressure  is  essential  to  the  proper  aeration  and 
circulation  of  the  blood,  so  a  certain  weight  of 
social  opinion  is  necessary  to  the  complete  expres- 
sion of  the  nature  of  the  individual,  that  is,  to  the 
freest  volitional  action.  The  life  of  the  ego  is,  in 
fact,  a  continuous  reaction  to  this  pressure,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  affects  the  form  of  the  whole 
conscious  life. 

It  should  be  added  also  that  the  acts  and  ends 
of  life  are  so  closely  interwoven,  and  so  much  of 
the  conduct  of  life  is  determined  by  the  idea  of 
remote  and  comprehensive  ends,  that  neither  the 
intent  nor  the  act  of  the  moment  can  be  regarded 
as  complete  in  itself.  And  there  lies  within  our- 
selves an  undiscovered  realm  from  which  emerge 
things  as  strange  to  us  as  are  the  contents  of  an- 
other mind.  It  is  only  in  part,  therefore,  that  we 
understand  our  volitions  or  otir  freedom.  But  the 
inquiry  into  the  freedom  of  the  will  is,  as  we 
have  said,  a  practical  inquiry;  and  if  we  cannot 
always  determine  precisely  what  we  will,  or  the 
freedom  we  may  enjoy  in  the  execution  of  our  will, 
this  does  not  affect  the  general  position  here 
taken.  We  are  free  only  in  so  far  as,  with  the 
will  set  to  an  object,  we  have  way  and  means  to 
do  what  we  will. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


MORAL  FREEDOM  AND   MORAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

'X'HE  question  of  freedom  arises,  as  we  have 
A  seen,  only  upon  the  appearance  of  a  volition 
or  the  will  to  act.  It  implies  nothing  as  to  the 
anterior  development  of  this  will:  it  takes  for 
granted  a  will  now  existent  and  seeking  satisfac- 
tion in  its  object.  And  there  must  be  an  object. 
A  man  does  not  assume  the  volitional  attitude, 
or,  in  other  words,  he  has  no  will,  imtil  he  has 
settled  upon  some  end  or  idea  which  by  some  act 
or  course  of  action  he  imdertakes  to  realise. 

This  idea  is  the  intellectual  element  in  volition. 
But  the  idea,  we  have  seen,  need  not  be  defined 
with  particularity  or  precision  in  order  to  become 
an  object  in  volition.  One's  conception  of  the 
right  in  general,  for  instance,  may  constitute 
such  an  object;  for  though  the  right  in  general 
is  an  abstract  or  symbol  of  an  indefinite  nimiber 
of  acts,  for  each  of  which  there  must  be  a  distinct 
intendment  of  the  will,  it  is  also  something  more 
than  a  mere  abstract.  It  means,  to  the  penitent, 
for  example,  the  forsaking  of  certain  namable 
companions,    the    surrender   of    certain    darling 


14 


209 


2IO  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

vices.  It  is  thus  an  object  at  which  the  willing 
subject  can  aim.  Otherwise  nothing  were  willed: 
there  were  no  determination  to  reform.  And  not 
imtil  this  object  is  so  far  defined  as  to  give  new 
direction  to  the  will  can  the  question  arise  whether 
the  will  to  do  right  is  or  is  not  free.  Freedom 
relates,  in  other  words,  to  the  execution,  not  to  the 
formation,  of  the  will.  Up  to  the  point  where 
the  man  addresses  himself  to  act  upon  his  idea 
the  idea  which  may  become  volitional  is  not  yet 
will.  The  will  is  still  in  the  making.  The  idea 
becomes  will  when,  through  its  cerebral  concomi- 
tants, it  initiates  the  motor  processes  which  issue 
in  movements  appropriate  for  the  realisation  of 
the  idea.^  And,  as  we  have  said,  the  will  is  free 
when,  being  identified  with  the  self,  or  directed 
to  an  end  in  which  the  self  seeks  satisfaction,  it 
discharges  itself  imimpeded  in  the  act  or  acts  to 
which  the  motor  system  is  adjusted  by  the  voli- 
tional idea.  An  end  relatively  remote  may  require 
a  number  of  such  adjustments,  at  each  of  which 
the  question  of  freedom  may  arise  afresh.  The 
question  must  then  be  settled  at  each  such  adjust- 
ment. And  it  may  appear  that  the  willing  subject 
is  free  with  reference  only  to  certain  of  its  intend- 
ments, and  not  free  with  reference  to  its  end  as  a 


»  In  "deliberation"  the  last  appetite  or  aversion,  imme- 
diately adhering  to  the  action,  or  to  the  omission  thereof, 
is  that  we  call  the  "will"  ;  the  act,  not  the  faculty,  of  "willing." 
Hobbes:  Leviathan^  chap.  vi. 


Moral  Responsibility 


211 


whole.  It  remains  true,  however,  that  as  a 
practical  question  freedom  relates  to  the  execution, 
not  to  the  formation,  of  the  volitional  idea. 

What  shall  we  say,  then,  of  the  doctrine  of  man's 
moral  freedom?  Simply  that  it  is  true.  Inasmuch 
as  in  all  questions  of  moral  obligation  the  course 
of  the  will  to  its  object,  the  right  action,  is  assumed 
to  be  open,  the  fact  of  man's  moral  freedom,  in 
the  sense  that  he  may  do  right  if  he  will,  cannot 
be  disputed.  That  we  must  assume  this  course  to 
be  open  is  clear,  for  otherwise  the  obligation  would 
not  lie.  The  right  act  is  always  an  act  which,  as- 
suming that  the  will  to  do  right  is  present,  is  within 
the  scope,  or  may  be  brought  within  the  scope,  of 
the  man's  capacity  to  perform.  The  act  thus  de- 
pends upon  the  man's  will  alone.  If  he  has  the 
will  to  do  the  act,  the  act  may  be  done,  other- 
wise he  would  be  under  no  obligation  to  do  it. 

And  this  freedom  from  impediments  external 
to  the  will  is  all  that  is  properly  implied  in  the 
assertion  of  moral  freedom  as  a  ground  of  moral 
responsibility.  If  the  way  is  open,  if  means  and 
opportunity  for  the  execution  of  the  will  are 
offered  and  nothing  but  the  will  is  wanting, 
the  fault  lies  of  course  in  the  derelict  himself. 
The  responsibility  for  failing  to  do  right  is  then 
fixed.  That  is  to  say,  the  will  or  volitional  dis- 
position of  the  man  becomes  the  point  to  which  the 
usual  correctives  of  the  will  may  now  be  applied. 
But  it  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  question  of 


212  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


moral  freedom  and  of  the  responsibility  which  it 
involves  may  be  pushed  back  of  the  motor  idea 
essential  to  volition.  We  have  insisted  that  the 
will,  that  is  the  man,  is  free  if  when  willing  he  may 
do  as  he  wills.  And  he  is  morally  responsible  be- 
cause, when  he  is  willing  to  do  right,  there  can 
be  nothing  foreign  to  his  will  to  prevent  him 
from  doing  any  act  to  which  he  is  morally  obliged. 
But  it  is  asserted,  as  bearing  on  the  question  of  re- 
sponsibility, that  a  prior  question  may  be  raised. 
We  are  asked,  not  whether  the  man  is  free  to  do 
as  he  wills,  but  whether  he  is  free  in  the  sense 
that  he  can  will  to  will,  whether,  in  other  words, 
a  volition  can  be  the  object  of  a  volition.* 

The  question  is  psychological  rather  than 
practical  or  moral.  Moral  responsibility  is  re- 
sponsibility for  conduct,  that  is,  for  one's  out- 
ward bearing  or  actions,  rather  than  for  the 
mental  states  which  do  not  issue  in  action.  Of 
course  the  trend  of  the  thoughts,  since  thought 
tends  to  act  itself  out,  cannot  be  ignored  by  the 
individual  himself  or  his  monitor.  But  it  is  only 
the  overt  act  that  society  can  deal  with  when  it  is 
awarding  punishment  or  distributing  censure;  and 

»  Dem  empirischen  Begrifi  der  Freheit  heisst  es:  "frei 
bin  Ich  wenn  Ich  thun  was  Ich  will":  und  durch  das  **was 
Ich  will"  ist  da  schon  die  Freiheit  entschieden.  Jetzt  aber, 
da  wir  nach  der  Freiheit  des  WoUens  selbst  fragen,  wQrde 
demgemass  diese  Frage  sich  so  stellen:  "kannst  du  auch 
wollen  was  du  willst?" — Arthur  Schopenhauer:  Preisschrift 
iiber  die  Freiheit  des  Willens,  i.,  i,  c. 


Moral  Responsibility 


213 


it  censures  or  punishes  the  individual  as  it  finds 
him,  that  is,  as  a  man  undissected  and  whole. 
But    inasmuch    as    freedom    and    responsibiUty 
seem  to  go  with  the  will,  whatever  its  object,  it 
is  pertinent  to  ask  whether  the  will  to  will  is  in- 
deed a  true  wiUing.     We  should  say  that  it  is  not. 
Psychologically,  perhaps,  the  will  to  will  might 
with  some  straining  be  brought  under  the  category 
of  volition.    We  should  then  have  a  volitional 
idea  the  content  of  which  is  not  the  performance 
of  any  external  act,  but  the  formation  of  another 
volitional  idea;  and  the  realisation  of  the  first 
idea  would  be  the  formation  of  the  second.     Is  a 
man  free  to  execute  this  sort  of  volition  ?    We  can 
only  answer  that  sometimes  he  is  and  sometimes 
he  is  not.     Instincts  which  were  quiescent  in  the 
first  stage  of  the  process,  the  so-called  will  to  will, 
may  appear  later  in  unsuspected  strength  and 
prevent  the  formation  of  the  will  to  act.     But 
the  process  is  not  unfamiliar.     It  is  known  in 
common  experience  as  making  a  resolution.    And 
whether  a  man  can  or  cannot  carry  out  a  given 
resolution,  or  convert  it,  when  the  time  for  action 
comes,  into  the  will  to  act,  is  a  question  which  per. 
haps  few,  and  very  likely  not  even  the  man  him- 
self, would  undertake  to  answer.^    If  he  cannot, 

«  We  must  therefore  accept  the  conclusion  that  each  such 
resolve  has  only  a  limited  effect:  and  that  we  cannot  know 
when  making  it  how  far  this  effect  will  exhibit  itself  in  the 
performance  of  the  act  resolved  upon.-H.  Sidgwick:  Methods 
of  Ethics,  book  i.,  chap,  v.,  sec.  5. 


214   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Moral  Responsibility 


215 


should  we  then  say  that  his  freedom  in  willing 
is  restricted?  That  would  be  to  use  the  words 
out  of  their  ordinary  sense,  and  to  confound  the 
meaning  of  two  terms,  resolution  and  volition, 
which  we  have  good  practical  reasons  for  keeping 
distinct.  Ordinarily  we  do  not  speak  of  a  man 
either  as  willing  or  as  free  except  in  relation  to 
his  acts.  Nor  do  we  hold  him  responsible  in  merely 
resolving  or  willing  to  will.  Freedom  and  re- 
sponsibility are  practical  concepts.  They  do  not 
apply  to  an  anatomised  subject,  or  to  some  merely 
psychological  phase  in  the  formation  of  the  will  to 
act.  It  is  in  what  the  man  does  as  a  man  that  we 
deem  him  free  or  restrained  of  his  freedom,  and  it 
is  the  man  as  affecting  other  men  that  we  hold 
responsible.  In  other  words,  it  is  conduct  that 
we  judge,  punish,  and  reward. 

But  the  confusion  of  thought  which  appears  in 
the  attempt  to  apply  the  concept  of  freedom  to 
the  genesis  rather  than  to  the  expression  of  the  will 
appears  in  other  forms.  The  study  of  the  natural 
sciences,  now  so  generally  pursued,  disposes  the 
student  to  apply  the  concepts  of  his  science  to 
every  domain,  even  to  the  conscious  life  of  man. 
Hence,  if  he  is  caught  by  the  fallacy  which  lurks 
in  the  word  **necessity,**  he  may  be  heard  to  argue 
that  moral  freedom,  and  indeed  all  freedom, 
is  an  illusion.  Even  the  student  of  sociology, 
weighing  the  influence  of  heredity,  education,  asso- 
ciation, and  other  abstractions  to  which  we  assign 


the  role  of  psychical  **forces,"  may  conclude  that 
certain  deviations  from  the  right  are  inevitable. 
How  then,  he  may  ask,  shall  a  man  be  held  re- 
sponsible if  he  does  wrong?  And  what  is  punish- 
ment but  an  added  wrong? 

Questions  like  these,  which  have  found  their 
way  into  literature  and  have  given  rise  to  much 
sentimental  moralising,  present  no  serious  diffi- 
culty under  the  theory  of  causation  and  freedom 
which  we  have  defended.  In  effect  they  have 
been  answered  already.  Responsibility  follows 
freedom,  and  neither  is  incompatible  with  causa- 
tion viewed  as  a  linear  series  of  changes  in  that  uni- 
versal action  and  reaction  of  original  forces  which 
constitutes  the  system  of  nature.  And  responsi- 
bility, like  freedom,  assumes  the  will  to  act,  by 
whatever  means  generated,  as  already  given.  The 
ordinary  plea  in  evasion  of  responsibility  is  an 
averment  that  the  act  complained  of  was  not  the 
act  of  the  will.  Such  a  plea,  when  its  averment 
is  established,  must  be  recognised  as  valid.  But 
if  the  offender  shpidd  allege,  not  that  he  did  not 
will  the  offensive  act,  but  that  he  in  fact  did  will  it, 
pleading  however  that  he  could  not  help  but  will 
it,  we  should  have  a  quite  different  plea.  The 
plea  in  the  one  case  is  that  the  man  is  not  responsi- 
ble for  his  act,  on  grounds  which  are  in  practice 
recognised  as  sufficient,  and  which  leave  the  com- 
mon doctrine  of  responsibility  unimpaired.  The 
plea  in  the  other  case  is  that  the  man  is  not  respon- 


/ 


2i6  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

sible  for  his  will,  or  volitional  idea,  and  would,  if 
by  such  a  plea  punishment  could  be  evaded,  empty 
the  term  responsibility  of  all  content.  And 
these  two  pleas  are  confounded  as  one.  It  is 
assumed  as  self-evident  that  if  a  man  is  not  respon- 
sible for  the  constitution  which  is  practically  ef- 
fective through  his  will,  he  is  not  responsible  for 
the  acts  of  his  will. 

The  assumption  is  unfotmded,  and  rests  upon  a 
mistaken  conception  of  the  meaning  of  responsi- 
bility. In  his  efforts  to  ameliorate  his  social  con- 
dition man  must  make  a  beginning  somewhere: 
something  must  be  taken  as  established.  Where 
responsibility  is  imputed  and  punishment  is  in- 
flicted it  is  the  will  to  work  social  harm  which  is 
taken  as  the  point  of  departure.  We  are  bound, 
of  course,  in  the  economy  of  effort,  to  trace  evil  to 
its  source,  and,  if  possible,  to  dam  up  the  source. 
But  we  cannot  go  back  indefinitely.  The  chain 
of  causation  is  infinite,^  and  if  the  attempt  to  fix 
responsibility  should  require  us  to  refer  each  cause 
to  an  ulterior  cause,  in  search  of  an  ultimate  cause, 
the  result  would  be  to  paralyse  effort  in  advance 
and  strip  the  word  responsibility  of  meaning. 
In  practice  the  ultimate  cause  must  be  one  which 
is  to  some  extent  under  our  control,  or  reacts  to  our 

« Jede,  auch  die  einfachste  Willenshandlung  ist  .  .  . 
Endglied  einer  unendlichen  Reihe,  von  der  uns  stets  nur 
einige  der  letzten  Glieder  gegeben  sind. — W.  Wundt:  Ethik^ 
dritter  abschn.,  erstes  cap.,  i,  c,  S.  377. 


Moral  Responsibility 


217 


activity ;  and  the  ultimate  cause  sought  for  in  any 
investigation  intended  to  fix  responsibility  is  the 
will.  With  the  will  something  may  be  done. 
That  we  have  learned  from  experience.  Where 
there  is  question  of  responsibility,  therefore,  the 
inquiry  begins  with  the  evil  or  anti-social  act, 
and  harks  back  to  the  will  to  act.  There  we 
touch  a  point  at  which  remedies  may  be  applied. 
And  there,  save  so  far  as  is  necessary  to  determine 
the  severity  of  the  punishment  or  the  nature  of  the 
remedy,  the  inquiry  ends. 

The  fact,  therefore,  that  the  volitional  act  is 
involved  in  causal  or  systematic  relations  with 
society  and  the  world  is  so  far  from  absolving  the 
agent  from  responsibility  for  his  act  that  such 
relations  are  presupposed  when  pimishment  is 
inflicted.    The    disorder    in    the    will,    however 
caused,  is  a  present  fact,  and  the  remedy  proposed 
is  one  that  has  been  found,  in  its  general  results, 
more  or  less  effective.    And  were  it  not  absurd 
to  insist  that  a  remedy,  or  a  new  causal  influence, 
may  not  be  applied  for  the  reason,  indeed,  that  the 
disorder  itself  is  not  imcaused!    The  physician 
does  not  relax  his  efforts  in  the  abatement,  say, 
of  malarial  fever,  because  the  conditions  of  its 
presence  may  be  traced  to  the  incidents  of  remote 
geologic  time.     His  art  requires  no  more  than  that 
he  shall  be  sure  of  his  diagnosis  and  of  the  fitness  of 
his  remedies.     And  this  is  all  that  is  required  in 
punitive  treatment  or  social  therapeutics. 


il! 


I 


2i8   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

We  conclude,  then,  that  there  is  nothing  in 
the  recognition  of  the  volitional  act  as  effect 
which  resolves  away  the  freedom  of  the  agent  or 
cuts  away  the  ground  of  responsibility.  The 
agent  is  free  if  he  can  consummate  the  volitional 
act,  that  is,  if  he  can  have  his  will;  and  if  he 
knowingly  wills  a  harmful  act  he  is  responsible 
for  the  harm.  Pimishment  is  a  general  remedy 
for  the  correction  of  the  injurious  will.  That 
volition  as  a  psycho-physical  fact  is  caused,  or  has 
systematic  antecedents,  is  doubtless  true,  but  is 
here  immaterial.  The  purpose  of  pimishment  is 
in  a  general  sense  to  heal,  and  the  will,  like  the 
wilding  fruit,  may  be  in  systematic  relations  with 
the  universal  activity  and  yet  be  amenable  to 
treatment.  In  fact,  it  must  be  causally  related 
or  we  could  not  deal  with  it  at  all. 


SECTION  VI 

Relation  of  Morality  to  Happiness 

CHAPTER  XXII 


general  considerations 

'lAT'E  have  seen  that  among  the  fundamental 
V  V  principles  of  our  nature  is  a  demand  for 
the  maximum  satisfaction  attainable  through 
functional  activity  in  its  various  forms,  and 
particularly  through  such  activity  as  is  directed 
to  volitional  ends.  This  demand,  as  applied  to  any 
particular  fimction,  we  regard  as  the  elemental 
principle  of  conscious  choice.  And  the  principle 
becomes  rational  when  it  is  consistently  applied, 
that  is,  when  all  demands  are  harmonised  and 
organised  as  a  general  demand  for  such  f imctional 
life  as  will  yield  on  the  whole  the  completest 
satisfaction  attainable  under  the  conditions  of 
Ufe. 

We  have  seen,  further,  that  social  organisation 

is  indispensable  as  a  means  of  complying  with  this 

rationalised  demand.       In  other  words,  society 

is  necessary,  not  only  for  the  satisfaction  of  the 

social  impulse,  but  as  alone  offering  stimulus  and 

219 


220  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Morality  and  Happiness 


221 


Opportunity  for  human  development  from  the 
state  of  the  brute  to  that  ideal  state  which  is  the 
progressive  goal  of  human  hopes. 

And  we  have  seen,  finally,  that  the  moral  laws 
stand  as  elementary  conditions  of  social  organisa- 
tion, conditions  with  which  the  individual  must 
comply  in  order  to  fit  himself  for  the  associative 
life,  upon  which  human  progress,  general  and 
individual,  depends. 

Morality  is  thus  a  fundamental  condition  of 
human  development,  and  of  such  increase  in  the 
pleasure  or  satisfaction  attainable  in  life  as  comes 
with  such  development,  in  the  sweetening  of  social 
intercourse,  the  strengthening  of  social  ties,  and 
a  general  increase  in  fimctional  power. 

In  assigning  to  morality  this  pre-eminent  position 
as  a  condition  of  human  happiness  we  do  not  mean 
to  be  understood,  however,  as  maintaining  that 
morality  is  the  sufficient  condition  of  pleasure  in 
general.  This  would  be  to  fly  in  the  face  of 
experience.  Nor  could  we  with  consistency  hold 
to  such  a  view.  Recognising  that  feeling  depends 
on  function,  we  must  allow  that  pleasure  of  any 
particular  kind  is  attainable  only  through  the  spe- 
cific functional  activity  by  which  it  is  produced. 
No  matter  how  scrupulously  we  comply  with  the 
moral  prescription  in  all  that  we  do,  we  must  miss 
the  pleasure  dependent  on  the  exercise  of  such 
capacities  as  are  left  to  rust  unused.     Each  end, 


with  its  satisfactions,  must  be  won  by  appropriate 
means.     One  does  not  by  one's  morality,  for  in- 
stance,   earn   the   pleasures   attendant   on   the 
cultivation  of   science,  philosophy,  or  the  arts. 
What  we  insist  upon  here  is  the  fact  that  the  force 
which  holds  society  together  is  moral,  and  that 
morality  is  therefore  an  indispensable  condition 
of    that    general    development    of    capacity    or 
function  which  is  possible  only  in  the  associative 
life.     Morality  is  thus  an  ulterior  condition  even 
of  such  pleasure  as  depends  on  activities  generally 
regarded  as  lying  without  the  sphere  of  morals. 
But  we  may  go  farther.    No  human  interest  does 
in  fact  lie  wholly  without  the  sphere  of  morals, 
and  no  great  work  can  be  accomplished  without 
social  stimulus  and  appreciation,  that  is,  without 
the  inspiration  of  those  strong  social  instincts  which 
are  the  essence  of  moral  feeling.    On  the  other 
hand,  whatever  is  essentially  immoral,  having  no 
hold  on  the  instincts  which  lead  us  forth  of  the 
self,  is  essentially  personal  and  trivial.     Morality 
is  therefore  something  more  than  a  remote  con- 
dition of  great  and  lasting  achievement.    It  has 
a  bearing  on  the  very  conception  of  really  im- 
portant work,  and  though  not  the  sole  condition 
of  success  in  its  prosecution,  which  demands  of 
course  capacity,  skill,  experience,  and  opportunity, 
it  is  an  essential  condition  of  success.     It  has 
thus  a  direct  relation  to  the  worker's  sense  of 
satisfaction  in  his  work. 


22  2   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


Morality  and  Happiness  223 


But  we  are  met  at  this  point  by  the  general 
objection  that  human  happiness  is  not  in  fact 
conditioned  by  human  development.*  Civilisa- 
tion, we  are  told,  is  marked  by  evils  of  its  own, 
and  brings  on  the  whole  as  much  wretchedness 
as  happiness.  And  there  are  social  critics  who 
deplore  our  civilisation  as  an  artifice  which  marks 
but  the  decline  of  the  race  in  vital  capacity 
and  the  essential  requisites  of  happiness.  2  But 
even  a  slight  acquaintance  with  the  actual  savage 
should  dispel  these  illusions  of  the  closet.  And 
the  evils  which  are  indisputably  rife  in  society, 
its  greed,  its  ingenuity  in  crime,  the  brutality 
and  squalor  of  its  masses,  may  be  traced  rather  to 
man's  lingering  wildness  than  to  any  civilising  pro- 

«  Die  zufriedensten  VOlker  sind  die  rohen  NaturvOlker  und 
von  den  CulturvOlkem  die  ungebildeten  Classen;  mit  steigen- 
der  Bildung  des  Volkes  wachst  erfahrungsmassig  seine  Un- 
zufriedenheit. — Eduard  von  Hartmann:  Phil,  des  Unbe* 
wussten,  bd.  2,  abschn.  C,  cap.  xiii.,  376. 

«  Semblable  k  la  statue  de  Glaucus,  que  le  temps,  la  met 
et  les  orages  avoient  tellement  d^figur^  qu'elle  ressembloit 
moins  k  un  dieu  qu'^  une  b^te  f^roce,  I'^me  humaine,  alt^^ 
au  sein  de  la  soci^t^  par  mille  causes  sans  cesse  renaissantes, 
par  I'acquisition  d'une  multitude  de  connoissances  et  d'erreurs, 
par  les  changements  arrives  k  la  constitution  des  corps,  et 
par  le  choc  continuel  des  passions,  a  pour  ainsi  dire  chang6 
d'apparence  au  point  d'etre  presque  m^onnoissable;  et 
Ton  n*y  retrouve  plus,  au  lieu  d'un  6tre  agissant  toujours 
par  des  principes  certains  et  invariables,  au  lieu  de  cette 
celeste  et  majestueuse  simplicity  dont  son  auteur  Tavoit 
empreinte,  que  le  difforme  contraste  de  la  passion  qui  croit 
raisonner,  et  de  I'entendement  en  d^lire. — J.  J.  Rousseau: 
Discours  sur  VOrigine  de  Vln^galiU  (preface). 


cess  to  which  he  has  been  subjected.     In  other 
words,  our  civilisation  is  one-sided  and  incom- 
plete.    It  has  not  yet  eradicated  the  barbarous 
spirit.     Hence  it  is  against  the  surviviag  barbar- 
ism, against  the  savagery  which  has  merely  im- 
proved its  weapons   or  sharpened  its   cimning, 
rather  than  against  the  civilisation  which  has  not 
yet  extinguished  the  barbarous  spirit,  that  the 
critic  of  ** progress*'  should  level  his  denunciation. 
Some  maladjustment   is    incident,   perhaps,   to 
any  attempt  at  readjustment.      But  the  great 
defect  of  our  civilisation,  as  must  appear  if  we 
examine  the  question  with  candour  and  care,  is 
that  it  has  not  gone  far  enough.    It  has  not  yet 
thoroughly  socialised  the  will. 

Or  the  demurrer  may  take  a  theoretic  and 
general  form.  The  critic  may  contend  that  the 
cup  of  happiness  never  deepens;  that  art  nor 
wit  nor  wisdom  can  ever  enlarge  it ;  that  it  may  be 
brimmed  for  the  savage  as  for  saint  or  savant,  and 
with  a  pleasure  as  real.  But  this  were  hard  to  main- 
tain. The  savage  has  little  pleasure  that  is  not 
physical,  and  keen  as  are  the  delights  of  animal 
sense  they  quickly  pall.  Pleasures  less  gross  and 
more  complex,  on  the  other  hand,  pleasures  due  to 
the  refinement  of  our  sensibilities  and  the  growth 
of  the  arts,  not  only  have  a  finer  edge,  but  are  at 
the  same  time  more  pervasive  and  more  lasting. 
And  with  the  fuller  development  made  possible 
by  improved  social  conditions,  and  by  increase  in 


22  4  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


the  means  and  instruments  at  our  command,  the 
forms  of  fimctional  activity  are  multiplied.  This 
multiplies,  again,  the  modes  of  pleasurable  feeling. 
And  the  value  of  the  feeling  thus  made  richer  by  a 
richer  functional  life  is  further  enhanced  by  the 
effect  of  contrast  and  change,  which  quicken  the 
current  and  deepen  the  channels  of  feeling. 

It  may  be  urged,  of  course,  that  increased 
capacity  for  pleasure,  due  to  the  heightened 
sensibility  of  the  developed  organism,  imports 
increased  susceptibility  to  pain.    And  this  is  true. 

Chords  that  vibrate  sweetest  pleasure 
Thrill  the  deepest  notes  of  woe. 

But  the  frequency  of  pain  does  not  necessarily 
increase  with  the  susceptibility  to  pain.  Feeling 
is  not  perforce  lacerated  because  it  is  fine.  In 
fact,  the  conditions  tinder  which  suffering  arises 
are  in  large  part  conditions  which  as  society 
progresses  may  be  corrected  or  improved.^  In- 
stance bad  physical  conditions,  due  to  our  igno- 
ranee  or  disregard  of  natural  law,  and  bad  social 
conditions,  due  to  defective  or  ill-advised  legis- 
lation. And  the  advance  which  civilisation  im- 
plies is  an  advance  for  the  very  reason,  among 
others,  that  it  reduces  the  number  of  these  in- 
jurious conditions,  and  thereby  reduces  the  extent 
and  mitigates  the  severity  of  human  suffering. 
We  cannot  conceive  of  a  developing  society,  in 
fact,  without  such  meliorative  change.     Perceiv- 


Morality  and  Happiness  225 

ing  no  such  change,  we  should  say  that  society 
were  going  backwards  or  standing  still.  Seeing, 
then,  that  the  amount  of  suffering  is  diminished, 
while  our  fimctional  activities  increase  in  scope, 
effectiveness,  variety  of  mode,  and  consistency 
of  aim,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  depth,  intensity, 
and  sweetness  of  the  affectional  life  are  increased. 
That  is,  taking  the  pain  with  the  pleasure,  we 
must  believe  that  in  the  course  of  htunan  develop- 
ment the  value  of  life  is  enhanced.  We  may  see, 
indeed,  in  the  human  face  itself  as  it  softens 
the  index  of  such  growth.  The  features  of  the 
savage,  torpid  with  sloth,  or  furrowed  with  the 
passions  of  anger,  hate,  and  fear,  bespeak  an 
affectional  life  incomparably  poorer  than  that 
which  we  read  in  the  face  of  the  humanised  man, 
lighted  with  intelligence,  kindliness,  and  hope. 

But  this  assumed  increase  in  the  volume,  in- 
tensity, and  value  of  our  affectional  life,  it  may 
be  urged,  is  illusory.  All  conscious  activity,  we 
may  be  told,  tends  by  repetition  to  sink  below 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  the  borders  of 
which  are  never  widened,  but  shrink  on  the  one 
hand  as  fast  as  they  expand  on  the  other.  And 
there  is  an  appearance  of  truth  in  this  contention. 
In  mastering,  for  instance,  the  technique  of  an  art, 
the  movements  of  which  the  student  is  at  first 
vividly  or  even  painfully  conscious  become  at 
length  automatic  or  reflex.  But  the  fact  that 
these  acquired  activities  become  reflex  does  not 

»5 


226  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

nuUify  the  gain.    They  are  added  to  the  sub- 
conscious  system  which  is  at  the  basis  of  our 
conscious  activity,  and  by  extending  this  basis  en- 
rich the  conscious  life  and  deepen  its  affectional 
tone.    All  the  pleasures  of  sensibility  and  motion 
depend  on  the  reflex  activity  of  the  organs  of 
sense  and  the  unconscious  co-ordinations  of  the 
muscular  system,  and  the  manual  dexterity  of 
the    artist,    when   it    has    become    mechanical, 
gives  him,  by  new  co-ordinations,  a  new  medium 
for  self-expression.     The  gain  thus  outruns  the 
loss.    Compare,  again,  the  affectional  capacity  of 
the  child  with  that  of  the  adult.    The  child's  cup 
of  feeling  may  be  full,  but  it  is  a  shallower  cup. 
The  borders  of  consciousness  are  widened .    Human 
development,  whether  it  dates  from  the  childhood 
of  the  individual  or  the  childhood  of  the  race,  is 
the  organisation  of  power,  and  by  increasing  the 
functional    capacity  on  which    feeling    depends 
enriches  the  feeling.      The  conditions  of  feeling 
require,  it  would  seem,  that  a  developing  hfe 
should  become  for  the  subject  a  more  valuable  life. 
Or  if  there  remains  a  lingering  doubt,  it  must 
vanish  as  the  eye  runs  down  the  vital  scale  and 
we  compare  such  a  piece  of  work  as  man  with  the 
oyster,  for  instance,  or  with  the  lowly  organisms 
which  the  biologist  places  nearer  the  beginnings 

of  animal  life. 

But  the  rule  of  life  would  be  no  other  than  we 
have  defined  it  even  if  what  we  call  progress 


Morality  and  Happiness  227 


carried  with  it  no  increase  in  our  enjoyment  of  life. 
The  fullest  satisfaction  is  possible  only  where  the 
self,  as  it  is,  finds  fullest  expression.  And  as  full 
self-expression,  in  virtue  of  the  law  that  exercise 
strengthens  the  function,  leads  to  self-develop- 
ment or  growth,  the  full  measure  of  satisfaction 
is  reached  only  by  the  expanding  self.  In  other 
words,  though  there  were  no  relative  gain  in 
growth,  life  would  attain  its  deepest  meaning  and 
value  for  the  subject  only  in  the  process  of  growth. 
We  cannot,  in  living  up  to  our  capacity,  stand 
still.  Life  is  movement,  and  the  life  which  on  any 
plane  wins  the  completest  satisfaction  is,  in  a 
creature  capable  of  advancement,  necessarily  a 
movement  forwards. 

Rational  life  as  we  have  defined  it  is  thus  by 
its  very  nature  an  ascent.  And  the  common 
faith  of  civilised  man  is  that  life  on  the  higher 
levels  of  capacity  is  of  incomparably  greater 
worth  to  the  conscious  subject  than  life  at  the 
level  of  the  barbarian  or  the  brute.  This  faith  we 
share,  as  grounded  in  experience.  But  were  the 
faith  unfounded  we  must  still  go  forward  or  miss 
the  good  that  is  within  our  reach.  The  splendour 
of  the  summit  may  be  illusory,  but  the  good  to 
be  gathered  as  we  climb  the  slope  is  real.  And 
it  can  be  gathered  in  full  measure  only  as  we  climb. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

query:  does  morality  demand  of  the  indivi- 
dual UNCOMPENSATED  SACRIFICE  ? 

IT  appears  that  the  functional  development  on 
which  the  social  unit  must  rely  to  get  from 
life  its  ftill  value  leads  to  and  is  promoted  by  the 
progressive  movement  of  society  as  a  voluntary 
organised  union  of  independent  minds.    And  the 
fundamental  law  of  social  union  is  the  moral  law. 
But  while  we  may  take  for  granted  the  principle 
that  the  social  union,  as  social,  coheres  only  by 
moral  ties,  and  that  the  social  welfare,  which  de- 
pends on  the  morality  of  the  members  of  the  union 
makes  in  general  for  the  welfare  of  the  individual 
member,  there  is  some  doubt  whether  this  principle 
is  in  strictness  universal.     In  other  words,  not  all 
men  are  convinced  that  the  moral  law,  though 
essential  to  the  general  welfare  or  happiness,  is  at 
all  times  a  principle  of  happiness  for  all  without 
exception  who  observe  it.    No  exceptions  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  law  are  allowed,  as  a  rule,  by 
those  who  in  the  name  of  God  or  of  man  make 
the  moral  demand.     The  claims  of  morality  are 
usually  preferred  as  absolute.     It  would  seem, 
therefore,  that  the  individual  must  be  convinced,  if 

228 


Morality  and  Happiness  229 

these  claims  are  based  on  the  relation  of  morality 
to  happiness,  that  any  infraction  of  the  moral 
law  on  his  part  must  impair  his  happiness,  or  why 
should  he  obey  it.?  It  is  true  that  the  state,  in  its 
effort  to  correct  social  disorder,  does  not  stop 
to  convince.  It  furnishes  a  motive  of  its  own. 
Looking  to  the  general  good,  it  ignores  the  possible 
hardship  which  its  demands  may  work  in  the  indi- 
vidual case,  and  enforces  its  demands  by  an  appeal 
to  fear.  But  the  moral  appeal,  as  such,  is  made 
to  the  individual's  good  feeling  and  good  sense. 
And  if  the  individual  is  urged  to  make  the  social 
aim  his  invariable,  unreserved,  and  personal  aim, 
it  must  be  on  the  ground  that  the  social  or  moral 
demand  is  one  at  which  no  rational  creature  can 
cavil.  The  general  validity  of  the  moral  demand, 
whatever  our  pointof  view,  cannot  well  be  disputed  ; 
but  it  is  not  allowed  by  all  to  be  universally  valid 
if  morality  is  to  be  justified  by  its  effect  on  the 
happiness  of  the  moral  agent  alone. »  The  advo- 
cate of  the  doctrine  that  morality  must  be  so 


>  No  proposition  can  be  more  palpably  and  egregiously 
false  than  the  assertion  that  as  far  as  this  world  is  concerned 
it  is  invariably  conducive  to  the  happiness  of  a  man  to 
pursue  the  most  virtuous  career. — Wm.  E.  Hartpole  Lecky: 
History  of  European  Morals,  p.  6i.     (Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1884.) 

The  attempt  to  establish  an  absolute  coincidence  between 
virtue  and  happiness  is  in  ethics  what  the  attempting  to  square 
the  circle  or  to  discover  perpetual  motion  is  in  geometry  and 
mechanics.  I  think  it  better  frankly  to  abandon  the  hopeless 
endeavour.— Leslie  Stephen:  Science  of  Ethics,  p.  430. 


230    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


justified,  if  at  all,  is  therefore  bound  to  consider  the 
exact  scope  of  his  doctrine. 

What  then  is  the  relation  of  individual  happiness 
to  the  general  welfare  as  conditioned  by  the  moral 
life?    Apparently  the  fruits  of  moral  action  may 
lag  too  far  behind  the  act  to  be  always  enjoyed 
by  the  agent,  or  to  compensate  him  for  all  moral 
sacrifice.    One  generation  sows  and  another  reaps. 
Thousands   have    died    in    defence   of    political 
freedom  and  liberty  of  conscience,  and  the  freedom 
in  which  they  could  not  live  is  ours.    There  may  be 
a  Nemesis  which  pursues  races,  nations,  or  com- 
munities; on  the  broad  and  continuous  stage  of 
history  virtue  may  be  essential  to  happiness,  and 
vice  may  be  the  initial  phase  of  disintegration  and 
death ;  but  this  sequence  of  reward  and  requital,  it 
is  urged,  cannot  be  established  with  certainty  in 
the  individual  life.    There  the  field  is  too  narrow. 
The  mills  of  the  gods  grind  too  slowly,  and  the 
play  of  the  moral  forces  is  on  too  vast  a  scale  to 
balance  each  private  account  as  it  runs,  and  to 
render  to  every  man  in  the  brief  span  of  his  life 
according  to  his  deeds. 

Can  we,  then,  on  the  grounds  that  we  have 
urged,  press  the  moral  demand  as  absolute  ?  Hap- 
piness, to  be  felt  at  all,  must  be  felt  by  individuals. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  general  conscious- 
ness in  which  the  pains  of  one  man  are  com- 
pensated by  the  joy  of  another.  The  individual 
is  the  conscious  imit.     If  therefore  the  force  of  the 


Morality  and  Happiness  231 


moral  obligation  lies  in  the  value  of  moral  conduct 
as  a  means  to  human  happiness,  it  would  appear 
that  the  tiltimate  justification  of  the  moral  life  must 
be  sought  in  its  relation  to  the  individual  con- 
sciousness of  happiness,  that  the  moral  life  must 
be  for  a  given  individual  happier,  at  least  in 
those  aspects  of  life  to  which  morahty  applies, 
than  the  immoral  life.  But  if  cases  arise  in  which 
this  justification  is  wanting,  for  life  as  a  whole 
or  in  part,  how  can  we  urge  the  moral  demand 
as  binding  at  all  times,  without  distinction  and 
without  reservation,  upon  all? 

It  is  the  exceptional  case,  it  will  be  observed, 
that  calls  for  consideration  now.  In  the  main  the 
individual  interest,  intelligently  imderstood,  coin- 
cides with  the  general  interest,  and  is  therefore 
conserved  by  obedience  to  the  moral  behest, 
which  is  uttered  in  the  general  interest.  But 
there  are  apparent  exceptions  to  this  rule.  And 
if  such  exceptions  are  allowed  to  be  real  how  are 
they  to  be  dealt  with  in  accordance  with  the 
theory  we  are  defending?  And  how  far  are  they 
real? 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
QUESTION  discussed:    unconscious  effects  of 

MORALITY  AND    IMMORALITY 

MUCH  of  our  tinhappiness.  perhaps  most  of  it, 
lies  in  the  torment  and  unrest  of  conflict- 
ing desires.    Nothing  frets  the  feeling  like  a  divided 
purpose.    The  harsh   outer  condition  one  may 
with  good  wit  evade  or  with  a  good  grace  accept ; 
but  inner  disorder,  the  vexed,  erratic,  ill-organised 
will,    frustrates   achievement   and  roils   all  the 
sources  of  feeling.    And  the  effect  on  the  feeling 
is  proportioned  to  the  extent  of  the  disorder. 
Even  where  failure  is  neither  obvious  nor  com- 
plete, the  corrupting  action  of  cravings  suppressed 
but  imsubdued  hampers  that  free  movement  of 
the  mind  which  is  the  condition  of  its  joyous  ac- 
tivity.  The  tide  of  feeling  breaks  with  the  breaking 
strength  and  disrupted  imity  of  the  will. 

But  to  focus  the  aims  of  life  and  allay  the  fever 
of  unrest  some  broad  and  harmonising  principle 
must  be  in  effective  control  of  our  practice.  To  a 
certain  extent  the  demands  of  an  absorbing  occu- 
pation may  exert  this  control.  An  active  intelli- 
gence which  might  fritter  away  its  energy  in 
gossiping  inquiries  gets  direction  and  power  from 

232 


Morality  and  Happiness  233 


its  devotion,  say,  to  business  or  to  politics  or  to  a 
particular  science.  But  a  man's  vocation  rarely 
covers  the  whole  breadth  of  his  manhood.  It 
warps  him  to  its  own  confines,  and  he  shrinks  to 
the  measure  of  the  trader  or  talker  or  money- 
maker, or  something  less  than  a  man.  And  there 
is  no  vocation  which  can  compare  for  an  instant 
in  the  breadth  of  its  interests  with  the  vocation 
of  man  as  a  social  being,  and  no  harmonising 
principle  so  effective  as  a  constant  moral  purpose 
in  giving  strength  and  consistency  to  the  activities 
of  life.  A  moral  purpose,  which  is  not  merely 
conventionally  moral,  strikes  as  deep  as  the  social 
feeling  to  which  the  moral  purpose  gives  direction 
and  form;  that  is  to  say,  it  penetrates  the  whole 
life,  even  the  intellectual  life,  which  without  the 
truth-seeker's  sincerity  and  the  humanist's  sym- 
pathy achieves  nothing  which  can  endure. 

To  whatever  ends,  then,  the  self  is  consecrate, 
if  it  is  immoral,  that  is,  if  it  habitually  ignores 
the  profounder  social  laws,  it  is  so  far  self -destruc- 
tive: it  ignores  its  own  uses.  The  self  imsocial 
must  remain  a  dwarfed  and  mutilated  self.  We 
have  need  of  our  fellow-men  to  furnish  us  in  their 
need  and  by  their  aid  the  opportimity  for  self- 
expression;  and  we  have  no  less  need  of  their  sym- 
pathy and  recognition  that  we  may  feel  the  full 
force  of  the  self  which  they  help  us  to  express. 
In  so  far,  therefore,  as  a  man  by  violation  of  social 
law  weakens  the  sympathetic  interest  which  make 


234   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


his  life  intelligible  and  necessary  to  others  he 
shuts  out  opportunity,  narrows  his  sphere,  and 
thus  violates  the  law  of  his  own  well-being.  We 
cannot,  of  course,  assume  that  there  is  no  pleasure 
in  any  anti-social  act.  A  man  may  derive  a  certain 
satisfaction  from  the  reflection  of  his  force  or 
cunning  in  the  fears  and  hatred  of  his  kind.  The 
gratification  of  any  sense,  the  realisation  of  any 
end,  is  in  itself  a  pleasurable  fimction.  But  the 
pleasure  of  the  anti-social  act  is  mingled  with 
bitterness  and,  having  no  organic  relation  with  the 
body  of  wholesome  and  permanent  satisfactions 
which  are  based  in  sympathy  and  social  good, 
is  shallow  and  evanescent.  So  imperative  indeed 
is  the  demand  of  our  nature  for  sympathetic  re- 
cognition that  the  selfish  or  anti-social  act  is  soon 
stripped  of  such  poor  satisfaction  as  it  may 
procure.  The  profligate  finds  his  cup  soon 
drained.  The  egoist,  in  the  very  heart  of  society, 
wraps  himself  in  solitude  as  with  a  shroud. 

The  effect  of  immorality  as  a  repression  or  per- 
version of  the  proper  activity  of  the  self  is  thus 
essentially  morbid.  And  the  infection  cannot 
fail  to  reach  the  feeling.  It  must  reach  it,  too,  in- 
dependently of  our  recognition  of  its  source  and 
character.  There  can  be  no  continuous  under- 
lying happiness  where  so  strong  and  pervasive  an 
interest  as  the  social  interest  is  contravened 
or  ignored.  The  baffled  social  impulse  reasserts 
itself  in  the  tone  of  the  feeling.    The  sources  of 


Morality  and  Happiness  235 


satisfaction  are  all  embittered  by  a  latent  feeling 
of  want,  and  the  vivifying  sense  of  expansion 
produced  by  the  reflection  of  the  self  in  the  affec- 
tion or  appreciation  of  others  is  replaced  by  a 
mocking  sense  of  the  hollowness  of  all  satisfactions. 
And  whether  the  cause  of  this  waste  and  want 
is  misinterpreted  or  seen  for  what  it  is,  the  social 
life  degenerates  in  function  and  feeling,  and  there 
is  deterioration  in  the  values  of  life. 

Mark  the  effect  of  lying,  for  example,  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  liar.  Self-expression,  to 
which  the  self  normally  tends,  requires  that  the 
self  shall  appear  in  its  proper  form,  that  feeling 
shall  assume  no  disguise,  that  intelligence,  seeing 
that  which  is,  shall  frankly  affirm  that  it  is. 
Veracity  is,  in  fact,  the  attitude  of  the  self  in 
the  act  of  self-expression.  Hence  the  truth 
distorted  or  denied  is  the  self  in  feeling  and  ap- 
prehension distorted  or  repressed.  The  liar,  in 
act  or  in  speech,  cannot  be  himself,  as  the  Uar 
himself  is  fretfully  aware.  How  swift  the  sycho- 
phant  to  show  his  true  feature  when  thrift  no 
longer  follows  fawning!  How  candid  the  hypo- 
crite with  his  own  dependents!  Simplicity  in 
speech,  sincerity  in  act,  are  of  the  essence  of  the 
conscious  life,  which  effectually  is  only  as  it  is 
expressed.  Absolute  candour,  no  doubt,  is  but  an 
ideal.  Men  are  our  enemies  as  well  as  our  friends, 
and  even  our  friends  misconstrue  our  frankness,  so 
that  the  most  candid  of  men  may  scarcely  wear 


236   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

his  heart  on  his  sleeve.  But  a  bluff  virtue,  seeing 
that  insincerity  is  mainly  the  suggestion  of  our 
fears,  scorns  a  too  careful  caution  or  too  nice  a 
prudence.  The  stronger  character  is  the  more 
direct.  And  the  habit  of  indirection  is  fatal  to 
that  simplicity  which  charms  us  in  the  child,  and 
in  those  ingenuous  natures  which,  escaping  the 
necessity  or  the  temptation  to  hide  the  promptings 
of  the  soul,  wear  the  grace  of  childhood  in  age. 

Or  consider  the  reflex  effect  of  arrogance,  a  vice 
of  masterful  races  and  men.  The  quality  is  not 
easily  appraised.  It  represents  an  attitude  rather 
than  a  range  of  definable  acts,  and  may  attach 
to  a  life  which  fairly  satisfies  the  demands  of  a 
prescriptive  morality.  It  may  even  be  vaimted 
as  a  virtue.  But  the  moral  isolation  and  self- 
contraction  which  it  entails  stamp  it  as  a  vice. 
The  virtues  are  essentially  social,  and  by  fostering 
the  genial  habit  which  makes  friendly  service 
instinctive  expand  the  sphere  of  the  self.  But 
arrogance,  shutting  out  others,  shuts  in  the  self. 
It  consents  to  be  served  by  men  as  with  a  tool,  but 
disdains  to  give  or  to  take  those  good  offices 
which  mark  the  spirit  of  man  as  human  and 
humane.  And  as  the  self  shrivels  its  satisfactions 
shrink.  With  arrest  of  the  friendly  fimction 
the  friendly  feeling  decays,  and  its  power  and 
benefit  are  lost  from  the  life.  Though  forgotten 
and  undesired,  they  are  lost. 

Or  take  dishonesty  and  the  vices  which,  under 


Morality  and  Happiness         237 


cover  of  social  relations,  make  prey  of  one's 
fellow-men.  They  tend  to  isolate  the  self  by  an 
atmosphere  of  distrust,  and  even  where  their 
presence  is  tinsuspected  they  still  tend  to  isolation 
by  damming  the  current  of  htiman  feeling  which 
should  flow  forth  of  the  self.  The  inward  reaction 
none  can  evade.  Treachery  disqualifies  the  self 
for  genuine  social  service,  and  a  spurious  service 
yields  only  spurious  satisfaction.  One  may  get 
by  indirection,  perhaps,  certain  things  which 
one  covets;  abimdance  of  lifeless  good  may  be 
laid  at  one's  feet;  but  it  is  at  the  cost  of  that  vital 
good  which  is  of  the  spirit,  the  spirit  which 
breathes  in  the  social  will. 

And  so  we  might  go  the  roimd  of  our  qualities 
and  their  perversions.  But  it  is  needless.  It  is 
enough  to  have  shown  that  vice,  as  anti-social, 
is  in  a  being  by  nature  social  essentially  morbid, 
and  that  the  antique  definition  of  virtue  as  the 
state  of  moral  sanity  or  health  is  something  more 
than  a  figure  of  speech.  Perfect  virtue,  however, 
or  complete  moral  sanity,  is  rare.  Perhaps  it  is 
never  to  be  foimd.  We  have  our  ideals.  We  feign 
types  of  a  saner  or  a  finer  human  nature  than  we 
know,  and  life  itself  offers  here  and  there  shining 
examples  of  particular  excellence.  But  it  is  in  the 
moral  realm  as  if  disease  were  the  rule  and  health 
the  exception,  so  that  the  character  of  immorality 
as  disorder,  irrespective  of  the  pronoimcement 
of  the  law,  escapes  us.     Hence  the  difficulty  of 


238  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

appreciating  moral  values.  Hence  the  scarcely 
veiled  contempt  of  the  vicious  for  the  self- 
sophistication  of  **the  good/*  fooled  by  a  moral 
ardour  which  counts  no  cost.  But  no  sophistica- 
tion is  so  complete  as  that  of  vice.  The  charm  of 
sense,  the  specious  promise  of  the  present,  the 
illusive  conception  of  a  private  good  that  shall 
not  perish,  constantly  seduce  us  and  as  constantly 
disappoint  us.  It  were  otherwise,  perhaps,  if  the 
effects  of  evil  were  sharp  and  importimate,  like 
an  ache  in  the  bones.  But,  seen  or  unseen,  their 
development  is  certain.  The  act  must  act  itself 
out;  the  seed  must  bear  its  fruit. 

The  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices 
Make  instruments  to  scourge  us. 

Though  a  man  should  mistake  evil  for  good,  or, 
knowing  his  wrong,  should  shrewdly  conceal  it, 
vice  must  run  its  course,  corrupting  the  sources 
of  feeling  and  thus  lowering  the  values  of  life. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


DISCUSSION  continued:  conscious  morality — 

CONSCIENCE 

WE  find,  then,  that  the  effect  of  immorality  is 
a  profound  derangement  in  the  economy 
of  the  conscious  life.  And  the  fact  of  this  derange- 
ment is  independent  of  our  recognition  of  its  pre- 
sence or  of  its  cause:  as  a  man  wastes  with  paresis 
whether  learned  or  unlearned  in  the  structure 
of  his  nerves,  so  a  morbid  habit  of  the  will  affects 
the  form  and  value  of  the  conscious  life  even  in 
a  subject  unversed  in  the  pathology  of  mind. 
The  tone  of  the  infected  feeling  is  lowered  though 
the  disease  be  misconceived  as  health. 

In  the  ordinary  case,  however,  a  man  is  not 
without  warning  of  this  systemic  degradation. 
Conscience  comes  to  his  aid.  Where  conscience 
or  the  instinctive  moral  consciousness  is  active  it 
enters  its  protest  at  the  inception  of  the  immoral 
act,  and  is  prompt  to  follow  with  its  pangs  dis- 
regard of  its  protest ;  while  compliance  with  the 
moral  demand  yields  a  deep  and  enduring  sense  of 
satisfaction  which  dates  from  the  instant  of  moral 
choice.    As  a  distinct  and  well-recognised  form 

239 


240  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


of  consciousness,  conscience  is  thus  an  added 
incentive  to  the  moral  life.  Let  us  consider 
for  a  moment  the  mode  of  its  action. 

We  have  treated  the  moral  consciousness  as 
arising  by  natural  growth  tirider  the  conditions 
imposed  by  social  life.  But  this  view,  it  is  said, 
does  not  account  for  the  sense  of  moral  obligation 
as  we  feel  it.  The  force  of  the  moral  obligation, 
it  is  urged,  is  something  different  from  the  force  of 
an  instinct  or  an  inveterate  habit.  Our  aesthetic 
judgments  are  for  the  most  part  instinctive, 
but  we  seem  to  be  under  no  such  stress  of  obliga- 
tion to  seek  after  beauty  and  shun  deformity  as  to 
eschew  evil  and  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good. 
With  the  sense  of  right  there  seems  to  be  fused 
the  consciousness  of  an  inner  requirement,  quite 
distinct  from  personal  choice,  to  pursue  the  right, 
so  that  the  right  wovdd  hardly  be  conceived  as  the 
right  unless  it  earned  this  requirement.  How 
does  this  peculiar  sense  of  obligation  arise? 

It  may  be  explained  in  part,  perhaps,  as  the 
effect  of  external  pressure.  Individual  conduct 
is  to  a  great  extent  guided  by  social  constraint, 
rather  than  by  independent  conviction;  but  this 
outward  pressure,  persistently  exerted,  may  never- 
theless produce  a  state  of  mind  which  is  in  practice 
tantamount  to  conviction,  and  which  through 
the  force  of  habit  carries  with  it  a  sense  of  obliga- 
tion. In  some  such  way  we  must  account  for  the 
tenacity  with  which  a  mere  custom  maintains 


Morality  and  Happiness  241 


its  hold  on  men's  lives.  The  unreflective  mind 
simply  absorbs  its  opinions,  and  tends  to  fall 
without  question  into  the  prevailing  habit;  and 
as  feeble  intelligence  is  not  inconsistent  with 
strong  propensities  to  action,  a  borrowed  opinion 
may  be  maintained  with  the  same  pertinacity 
and  force,  and  with  the  same  sense  of  obligation, 
as  an  opinion  deliberately  adopted  for  reasons 
which  convince.  We  may  well  believe,  therefore, 
that  in  many  minds  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation 
contains  elements  which  have  this  external  origin. 
There  is  probably  no  one,  indeed,  whose  moral 
habits  are  all  independently  formed. 

But  to  assume  that  the  whole  force  of  this 
feeling  of  moral  obligation  is  the  force  of  a  habit 
thus  imposed  from  without  were  to  strain  the 
facts.  The  force  of  habit,  we  know,  is  for  good 
or  for  evil  very  great.  But  a  habit  which  is  not 
grounded  in  the  form  of  our  nature  and  the  general 
conditions  of  life,  or  which  tends  to  no  good 
which  the  individual  originally  and  spontaneously 
desires,  could  scarcely  win  that  universal  ascend- 
ancy which  the  habit  of  deferring  to  moral  good, 
if  not  of  practising  it,  tends  to  acquire.  Even  a 
senseless  custom  may  turn  out  to  be  a  custom 
once  reasonable,  1  for  which  the  reason  has  dis- 

>  Happily  for  the  Hindus,  the  cow  which  supplies  them 
with  their  only  animal  food — milk  and  butter — and  the  ox, 
which  helps  to  till  their  ground,  were  declared  sacred  at  an 
early  period.  Had  it  not  been  so,  this  useful  animal  might 
have  been  exterminated  in  times  of  famine.    What  is  now 

16 


242    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

appeared.    Men,  after  all,  are  not  mere  automatons 
gesturing  by  mechanic  necessity,  or  mere  fools 
with  a  trick  of  imitation.    Conventional  morality, 
it  is  true,  is  local  and  changeable.     One  man  may 
think  it  a  sin  to  marry  his  deceased  wife's  sister; 
another,  to  listen  to  a  play,  or  to  drink  alcoholic 
liquors  or  smoke  tobacco.     But  the  moral  obliga- 
tion which  is  in  conformity  with  the  social  need, 
and  which  is  felt,  with  various  admixture,  in  all 
the  communities  of  men  who  have  made  any  con- 
siderable  advance  in  the  social  art,  cannot  depend 
upon  accident  or  convention,  but  must  be  referred 
to  universal  grounds.     It  must  correspond ,  in  other 
words,  to  some  essential  demand  of  our  nature. 
And  the  moral  demand  is  in  fact  based,  as  we 
have  seen,  upon  a  permanent  and  universal  human 
interest.     No  act  is  in  its  moral  effect  simply  pri- 
vate or  transient.     In  the  contentions  of  taste  or 
of  mere  policy  the  decision  affects,  or  is  felt  to 
affect,  restricted  or  temporary  interests.     A  matter 
of  morals,  on  the  other  hand,  affects,  and  is  more 
or  less  distinctly  felt  to  affect,  the  interests  of  all. 
Fraud  or  theft  or  homicide  is  never  a  merely  per- 
sonal affair  which  it  were  impertinent  to  meddle 
with,  but  threatens  the  common  weal  and  shocks 
the  sympathetic  consciousness  which  holds  the 
community  together.     One  man's  business  is  here 

a  superstition  had  its  origin,  like  some  other  superstitions, 
in  a  wise  foresight.— Monier  Williams:  Hinduism,  p.  156, 
note  (1878). 


Morality  and  Happiness  243 

every  man's  business.     However  private  the  in- 
jury, morally  the  offence  is  public*  and  in  con- 
demning it  the  moral  censor  feels  that  he  voices 
the  judgment  of  all,  not  excluding  the  offender 
when  he  comes  to  himself.     Hence  we  are  all,  on 
occasion,  custodians  of  the  moral  law.    Conscious, 
vaguely  or  distinctly,  of  the  common  character 
of  all  moral  questions,  we  feel  that  the  law  must 
be  obeyed  and  sustained  by  all;  and,  impressed 
by  the  gravity  of  the  moral  issue,  we  feel  the 
moral  obligation  with   a   force  which  no  other 
form  of  obligation  can  acquire.     Other  motives 
may  at  times  prove  stronger  than  the    moral 
motive.    Fear  or  desire  may  overmaster  every 
other  impulse.     But  no  other  obligation  has  claims 
so  permanent  or  so  general  as  the  moral  obligation. 
It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  feeling 
of  moral  obligation  is  not  in  all  respects  unique. 
All  corporate  activity  generates  in  the  members 
of  the  corporate  body  a  feeling  of  obligation  to 
further  the  common  ends.    Any  practical  rules, 
in  fact,  tend  as  the  interests  which  they  affect  be- 
come general  to  assume  in  the  minds  of  the  parties 
interested  an  obligatory  form.    The  art  critic, 
censuring  an  offender  against  the  canons  of  taste; 
the  lawyer  or  physician,  reproaching  an  associate 
for  unprofessional  conduct;  polite  society,  even, 
commenting    on    some    social    indiscretion,    or 
possibly  on  some  mere  disregard  of  the  correct 
form  in  dress ;  all  assume  something  of  the  tone  of 


244   Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

the  moral  censor  condemning  the  violation  of  a 
moral  obligation.  The  indiscretion  may  have 
a  moral  bearing  strengthening  the  force  of  the 
reproach,  but  the  authoritative  tone  may  be  as- 
sumed when  no  moral  censure  is  intended.  And 
the  reason  is  obvious.  The  censor  speaks  as  the 
representative  of  a  class  upon  a  matter  in  which 
every  member  of  the  class  has  an  interest.  It  is 
corporate  feeling,  more  or  less  consciously  present, 
which  suggests  the  censor's  impersonal  and 
authoritative  tone,  and  it  is  corporate  feeling 
which  creates  in  the  offender  the  sense  of  obligation 
to  which  the  censure  is  directed. 

But  any  class  or  corporate  interest,  when  com- 
pared with  the  moral  interest,  is  seen  to  be  specific 
and  narrow.  The  corporate  body  in  morals  is 
humanity  itself,  and  though  the  corporate  feeling 
to  which  the  moral  appeal  is  made  has  not  yet  the 
breadth  which  the  solidarity  of  human  interests 
should  assure  it,  it  tends  with  the  progress  of  the 
race  to  broaden  to  this  measure.  The  pressure  of 
the  obligation  which  weighs  upon  the  moral  con- 
sciousness thus  tends  to  correspond  to  the  magni- 
tude of  the  moral  issue.  The  correspondence  is  not 
yet  by  any  means  complete.  But  it  is  fairly  well 
recognised  that  no  other  obligation  can  compare 
in  breadth  or  significance  with  the  moral  obligation. 
The  difference  in  this  respect  is  in  fact  felt  to  be 
so  great  that  it  is  commonly  taken  to  be  a  differ- 
ence in  kind. 


Morality  and  Happiness         245 

The  difference  is  not  so  great,  however,  as  to  pre- 
clude the  conclusion  that  the  moral  consciousness 
is  developed  by  natural  growth,  under  the  con- 
ditions of  social  life,  from  the  fundamental  charac- 
teristics of  our  nature.  In  the  course  of  the 
development  of  social  life  the  appearance  of  a  sense 
of  obligation  commensurate  with  the  interests  seen 
to  be  involved  was  inevitable,  and  this  sense  of 
obligation,  reinforced  and  made  definite  by  ex- 
perience and  discipline,  has  led  men  to  discriminate 
between  good  and  evil,  in  the  more  common  re- 
lations of  life,  with  the  assurance  and  promptness 
of  an  instinctive  judgment.  This  instinctive 
judgment  is  the  judgment  of  conscience.  ^  And 
conscience  has  now  become,  in  different  stages 
of  development,  almost  a  part  of  the  furniture  of 
the  mind.  Wanting  a  conscience,  one  seems  to 
want  a  human  attribute. 

And  we  have  in  conscience  as  judgment,  as  will 
be  seen  from  its  genesis,  a  guide  of  great  value 
in  the  emergencies  of  practice.  It  is  important, 
too,  to  note  at  this  point  that  we  have  in  con- 
science as  feeling  a  more  or  less  active  factor 


»  By  coalescence,  a  vast  group  of  social  habits  of  judging 
others,  and  of  feeling  myself  judged  by  them,  can  get  woven 
into  a  complex  product  such  as  is  now  my  conscience.  Con- 
science is  a  well-knit  system  of  socially  acquired  habits  of 
estimating  acts — a  system  so  constituted  as  to  be  easily 
aroused  into  conscious  presence  by  the  coming  of  the  idea  of 
any  hesitantly  conceived  act. — Josiah  Royce:  Anomalies  of 
Self -consciousness;  Psych.  Review,  Sept.,  1895. 


246  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


in  the  happiness  or  unhappiness  of  the  moral 
agent.  In  discussing  the  grounds  of  moral  choice 
there  must  be  added,  therefore,  as  we  have  said, 
to  the  undefined  and  uninterpreted  feeling  of  moral 
distemper  or  moral  health,  the  more  specialised 
feelings  which  attend  the  workings  of  conscience, 
which  may  be  called  by  comparison  the  articulate 
moral  sense. 

And  the  influence  of  conscience  upon  the 
affective  life  is,  in  general,  undoubtedly  great. 
Tranquillity  of  conscience,  where  there  is  a  keen 
sense  of  right,  is  an  index  of  moral  health,  com- 
parable with  the  physical  content  which  goes 
with  sound  digestion  and  settled  nerves.  The 
sting  of  an  outraged  conscience,  on  the  other 
hand,  may  drive  a  man,  brooding  on  his  deeds, 
to  madness.  To  conscience,  therefore,  the  moral- 
ist as  mentor  continually  appeals.  And  in  that 
more  genial  treatment  of  morals  which  in  literature 
must  subserve  the  purposes  of  art  the  conscious 
revolt  of  the  moral  nature  is  still  the  supreme 
penalty  of  crime.  Remorse  is  Melpomene's  ever- 
recurring  theme.  But  remorse  is  keen  only  in 
finely  developed  natures.  In  those  grosser  dis- 
positions whose  moral  habit  is  mainly  external  and 
rests  in  a  feeble  original  sense  of  right  the  wounds 
of  conscience  quickly  heal.  As  punishment  they 
are  in  such  cases  inadequate.  And  in  the  mass  of 
mankind  we  may  say,  perhaps,  that  conscience,  as 
one  of  the  later  phases  in  the  development  of  the 


Morality  and  Happiness  247 


conscious  life,  is  too  imperfectly  organised  to  be 
depended  on  as  the  sole  sanction  of  the  moral 
demand.  It  reinforces  what  we  may  call  the 
organic  penalty,  which  lies  in  the  degradation  of 
the  general  affective  tone,  but  it  is  perhaps  only 
in  the  exceptional  case  that  it  is  of  itself  an 
adequate  penalty. 

So  far,  then,  as  conscience  alone  is  concerned 
we  do  not  find  that  it  can  offset  by  its  sting  all 
immoral  satisfaction,  or  by  its  approval  com- 
pensate for  all  moral  sacrifice.  In  the  main, 
perhaps,  it  inflicts  the  keenest  pain  on  those  who, 
with  occasional  lapses,  most  heed  its  monitions.^ 
The  graver  evil  back  of  moral  as  of  physical  pain 
lies  in  the  morbid  or  destructive  changes  of  which 
pain  is  the  index,  and  which  work  a  permanent 
disability  in  the  system.  The  knife  will  cut  and 
fire  will  bum  the  flesh  which  anaesthetics  have 
made  dead  to  pain;  and  those  generous  motions 
of  the  spirit  which  deepen  and  sweeten  our  lives 
are  cramped  by  selfishness  and  tmkindness  whether 
conscience  be  tender  or  callous.  Nevertheless 
the  specific  feelings  which  attend  our  conscious 
relations  to  the  moral  law  powerfully  supplement 
that  organic  reaction  to  evil  and  to  good  which  is 
the  unconscious  sanction  of  the  law.    Conscience, 

»  On  the  whole,  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  conscience, 
considered  apart  from  the  course  of  action  it  prescribes,  is  not 
the  cause  of  more  pain  than  pleasure.  Its  reproaches  are 
more  felt  than  its  approval. — W.E.  H.  Lecky:  Hist,  of  Europ, 
Morals,  p.  64.     (Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1884.) 


248  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

in  other  words,  by  intensifying  the  individual's 
interest  in  the  social  or  general  good,  in  which  the 
moral  good  lies,  tends  to  identify  it  more  closely 
with  the  general  interest,  and  to  make  the  possi- 
bility of  an  absolute  moral  sacrifice  somewhat 
more  remote. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

DISCUSSION  continued:   value  op  moral  prin- 
ciples SEEN  only  in  life  AS  A  WHOLE 

COME  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  us  in  any 
<^    attempt  to  determine  whether  we  have  in  the 
conscious  and  unconscious  effects  of  conduct  on 
feeling  sin*s  full  requital  or  virtue's  sufficient  reward 
arise  from  the  use  of  misleading  terms  or  a  false 
method  of  appraisal.    One  of  these  difficulties, 
already  noted,  is  the  tendency  to  restrict  the 
word  *' pleasure*'  to  merely  sensuous  or  egoistic 
relations.     This  restriction  is  based  on  popular 
usage,  but  it  has  given  rise  to  much  misunderstand- 
ing in  ethical  discussion.  The  appeal  to  what  we 
caU  the  ** higher'*  self,  with  its  finer  and   more 
enduring  satisfactions,  is  made   with   a  certain 
awkwardness  when  couched  in  terms  which  are 
commonly  applied  to  the  grosser  and  more  tran- 
sitory satisfactions  of  the  '*  lower  "  self.     But  there 
ought  to  be  no  difficulty  on  this  account  in  in- 
telligent inquiry.    Yet  even  philosophers  are  mis- 
led.    Men  writing  in  a  grave  and  for  the  most 
part  dispassionate  spirit,   having   degraded    the 
term  pleasure  to  the  level  of  its  ordinary  accept- 
ance, gird  at  it  with  facile  scorn.     But  sometime, 

249 


250  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

perhaps,  patient  iteration  will  expose  the  futility 
of  this  procedure.      We  shall  not  dwell  on  the 

point  now. 

There  is,  however,  a  difficulty  which  does  not 
spring  from  the  use  of  a  word,  and  which  demands 
more  careful  consideration.  It  turns  on  the 
method  of  estimating  values.  We  find  writers 
of  every  school  ignoring  the  imity  and  continuity 
of  the  conscious  life.  They  assume,  in  the  evalua- 
tion of  conduct,  that  each  act  may  be  isolated,  and 
that  its  affective  worth  must  be  determined  by  the 
sole  consideration  of  the  act,  thus  torn  from  its 
setting,  with  its  specific  accompaniment  of  feeling. 
Take  any  instance  at  hand.  Prompted  by  some 
inconvenient  scruple,  a  man  revolts  at  the  lie  or 
indirection  which  the  interests  of  his  employer 
are  supposed  to  require,  forfeits  his  position, 
lingers  in  poverty,  and  dies  in  neglect.  Or  a 
passing  stranger,  entering  a  burning  house  to 
rescue  a  child,  saves  its  life,  but  loses  his  own. 
By  what  hedonic  calculus  can  we  measure  the 
worth  of  any  such  sacrificial  act?  How  with 
any  candotir  can  we  talk  of  compensation? 
Detached  from  the  personality  of  which  the 
act  is  the  expression,  it  would  seem  that  the 
act  is,  on  the  basis  of  affectional  values,  simply 
indefensible. 

But  the  method  of  evaluation  is  false.  The 
conscious  life  is  not  a  mere  sum  of  separable 
states.    It  is  a  vital  whole.    Each  several  act  is 


-  Morality  and  Happiness  251 

determined  by  the  general  nature  of  the  ego  as 
the  gait  of  a  man  is  determined  by  the  structure 
of  his  frame.    And  this  unity,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  a  continuing  unity.     The  vice  or  the  heroism  of 
to-day  dates  back  to  the  wilful  or  serviceable 
habit  of  the  child,  and  feeling,  as  indissolubly 
associated  with  function,  follows  the  same  vital 
law.    The  ego  is,  in  short,  a  development,  and 
while  the  whole  is  effectively  present  in  every 
act,  each  act  becomes  in  itself  a  cause  which  in 
its  degree  modifies  the  constitution  of  the  whole. 
Every  act  in  effecting  its  object  reacts  on  the 
subject.     Each  setting  of  the  will  thus  becomes 
a  factor  in  the  constitution  of  the  ego,  and  tends, 
through  the  relation  of  function  to  feeling,  to 
raise  or  depress,  refine  or  imbrute,  the  general 
emotional  tone.    And  in  this  effect  it  increases  or 
diminishes  the  value  of  life. 

There  are  gradations,  it  is  true,  in  the  subjec- 
tive import  of  the  act.  It  is  a  volitional  act 
by  which  a  man,  for  instance,  chooses  the  cloth 
for  his  coat,  or  makes  up  an  order  from  a  bill  of 
fare,  or  takes  the  beach  rather  than  the  mountains 
for  his  walk.  But  the  effect  on  the  general  tone 
of  the  life  is  in  such  case  infinitesimal.  Only 
trivial  issues  are  involved  in  the  choice.  But  it  is 
of  the  nature  of  the  moral  choice  that  its  effect  is 
never  trivial  or  merely  personal.  The  moral 
demand,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  demand  of  man's 
social  nature,  and  immorality  is  an  attack  on  the 


2  52  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

scheme  by  which  society  coheres  and  under 
which  the  individual  develops.  Few  of  us,  per- 
haps, have  a  definite  conception  of  this  truth, 
but  fewer  still  can  shake  off  the  conviction  that 
momentous  issues  are  involved  in  each  moral 
decision.  Each  springs  from  and  reacts  upon 
the  social  or  moral  nature  of  the  man.  Whether 
he  perceives  the  import  of  his  decision  or  not, 
whether  he  wills  to  subdue  himself  to  the  moral 
demand  or  to  defy  it,  the  origin  and  effect  of  his 
decision  are  as  deep  as  is  the  social  impulse  of 
which  morality  is  the  rational  law. 

Morality  thus  stands  in  vital  relation  to  the 
development  and  general  tone  of  the  psychic  life. 
Inasmuch  as  the  whole  self  as  built  up  in  the  past 
is  effectively  present  in  each  act  of  moral  choice, 
no  estimate  of  the  subjective  value  of  the  act  can 
be  just  which  dissociates  the  act  from  the  self 
in  its  wholeness,  and  from  the  spirit  and  tone  which 
have  marked  the  whole  life  of  the  self.  The 
particular  act  is  but  the  expression  of  a  principle 
which  characterises  the  permanent  and  essential 
nature  of  the  man,  and  the  justification  of  the 
sacrificial  act  must  be  sought,  not  in  certain 
pulsations  of  feeling  directly  evoked  by  the  act, 
but  in  the  whole  effect  of  the  principle  on  the  life 
which  it  has  controlled. 

If  it  shall  happen,  then,  that  the  will  has  acquired 
a  force  of  moral  habit  which  urges  the  self  to  some 
act  of  self-efTacement,  it  seems  not  impossible  that 


Morality  and  Happiness         253 

the  act  may  be  justified  even  from  the  hedonic 
point  of  view.    The  courage  of  the  physician  or  the 
nurse  who  braves  contagion  and  dies,  or  of  the 
shipmaster  who  in  saving  his  charge  goes  down 
with  his  ship,  is  a  permanent  attribute  of  the 
will ;  and  as  the  act  flows  from  the  attribute,  it  is 
the  value  of  the  attribute  rather  than  the  value 
of  the  act  that  should  be  gauged  in  the  affectional 
estimate.     We  might  say,  perhaps,  that  even  in  the 
isolated  act  the  subject  is  in  part  at  least  indemni- 
fied by  the  moment's  exaltation.    And  possibly,  in 
natures  of  the  finest  fibre,  the  ecstasy  of  self- 
surrender  in  a  cause  which  the  self  holds  dear 
may  outweigh  in  the  affectional  scale  all  im- 
munities and    satisfactions  that  might   be   pur- 
chased by  defection  from  the  cause.  1    But  the 
evaluation  which  takes  account  of  present  feeling 
only  is  incomplete.     The  sacrificial  act  is  the 
product  of  a  habit  which  has  had  a  lifetime  for 
its  growth,  and  the  habit,  which  now  yields  its 
costliest   fruit,  has   already  enhanced    the  con- 
scious worth  of  the  life  whose  attitude  it  has  ruled. 
The  compensation  for  sacrifice  thus  begins  to  run 
before  the  consimimating  act.    It  lies  in  the 

*  For  he  [the  good  man]  would  prefer  being  pleased  for 
a  short  time  exceedingly,  than  for  a  long  time,  slightly;  and 
to  live  one  year  honourably  than  many  years  in  the  ordinary 
manner;  and  to  perform  one  honourable  and  great  act,  rather 
than  many  small  ones.  Those  who  die  for  their  country 
this  perhaps  actually  befalls.— Aristotle:  Bookix.,  chap.  viii. 
(Browne's  tr.) 


254  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

permanent  tone  of  feeling  characteristic  of  the 
attitude  which  makes  the  sacrifice  possible. 

And  there  is  no  method  of  proving  the  affec- 
tional  worth  of  one's  governing  principle  except  by 
a   free   and    fearless   response   to   its  demands. 
What  it  prompts  one  to  do  one  must  do  with  the 
whole  heart.    To  doubt  and  to  waver  and  to 
yield  a  hesitant  adherence  is  in  a  measure  to 
surrender  the  principle,  and  through   the  effect 
of  distraction  on  the  feeling  robs  even  final  com- 
pliance of  much  of  its  subjective  value.    Take 
the  quality  of  personal  affection.    The  subjec- 
tive value  of  a  strong  affection  is  indisputable, 
but  no  real  affection  can  be  said  to  exist  where 
there  is  no  disposition  to  incur  in  its  expression  a 
personal   risk.    A   strong   affection   indeed    will 
court  the  risk,  and  for  the  sake  of  its  object  will 
tranquilly  face  danger  or  death.    The  affection 
proves  its  own  worth  to  the  subject,  and  the 
exaltation  of  the  feeling,  or  its  subjective  worth, 
is  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  affection. 

Like  considerations  apply  to  every  principle  of 
the  conscious  life.  The  force  of  the  vital  impulse 
is  measured,  in  fact,  by  the  odds  it  will  face,  and  a 
careftil  prudence  which  reckons  to  evade  every 
risk  bentmibs  each  impulse  and  forestalls  its 
satisfaction.  A  principle  or  an  idea,  to  prove 
its  full  worth  for  the  feeling,  must  be  followed 
in  scorn  of  consequence  to  the  person.  The  self 
must  merge  in  the  idea ;  and  where  the  idea,  as  in 


"•f*. 


Morality  and  Happiness         255 

any  question  of  morals,  has  such  breadth  that  it 
touches  all  human  good  the  personal  consideration 
is  obviously  a  fatal  impertinence.     It  expels  the 
idea  and  checks  the  effort  and  enthusiasm  which 
the  idea  might  inspire.    The  effect  of  its  intrusion 
is  thus  to  paralyse  the  finer  part  of  our  conscious 
activity  and  to  reduce  the  self  and  its  satisfactions 
to  the  personal  limit.    To  bargain  for  creature 
comforts,  to  shrink  from  suffering,  to  coimt  the 
cost,  in  the  service  of  that  fraternity  which  prom- 
ises the  fruition  of  all  htmaan  hopes,  is  to  renounce 
the  service,  though  it  excels  all  service  in  its  power 
to  satisfy  the  soul.     Whither  the  idea  leads  the 
self  must  follow,  and  if  it  leads  to  personal  defeat 
or  physical  death  the  sacrifice  is  not  therefore 
absolute.    These  things  but  attest  its  strength 
and  its  power  to  satisfy. 

Morality  is,  in  fine,  not  an  act,  but  a  habit  of 
action,  and  the  subjective  worth  of  the  habit  must 
be  rated  by  its  whole  effect  in  the  life.  Perfect 
virtue  we  shall  hardly  find.  Some  lapse  we  must 
allow  for,  with  its  reaction  in  the  will  and  in  the 
quality  of  the  feeling.  But  if  the  defection  is 
not  justified  by  the  sophisms  of  self-esteem, 
if  error  is  in  candour  taken  for  what  it  is  and  the 
will^  holds  in  its  main  direction  true,  action  and 
feeling  may  maintain  their  high  general  level. 
For  the  feeling  must  rate  with  the  main  course 
of  the  action.  Honesty  may  miss  some  of  the 
prizes  which  dishonesty  covets  and  wins.    Com- 


256  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

pliance  may,  in  its  own  way,  profit  more  than 
sincerity  and  a  nice  sense  of  honour.  The  de- 
votion of  affection  or  of  duty  may  lead  to 
unnoted  suffering,  or  to  the  sleep  which  is  uncon- 
scious of  suffering  as  of  joy.  But  the  will  loyal 
to  the  human  interest  cannot  miss  the  exalted 
feeling  which  its  loyalty  inspires.^  And  if  the 
moral  purpose  leads  to  some  act  of  sacrifice,  the 
act  virtually  began  when  the  purpose  was  em- 
braced, and  at  that  instant  its  compensations 
began.  For  the  moral  purpose  tends,  from  the 
moment  it  becomes  active  in  the  will,  to  raise  the 
plane  of  action  and  feeling,  and  as  it  deepens  and 
strengthens  it  clears  up  the  paradox,  at  which 
prudence  stumbles,  that  the  greater  sacrifice  is  the 
easier,  that  the  life  of  most  worth  to  the  subject 
is  the  life  most  freely  flung  away. 

«  Suppose,  however  thickly  evils  crowd  upon  you,  that 
your  unconquerable  subjectivity  proves  to  be  their  match, 
and  that  you  find  a  more  wonderful  joy  than  any  passive 
pleasure  can  bring  in  trusting  ever  in  the  larger  whole. 
Have  you  not  now  made  life  worth  living  on  these  terms? 
— Prof.  W.  James:  Essays  in  Popular  Philosophy,  p.  60. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
DISCUSSION   concluded:    the    more    complete 

THE  VIRTUE  THE  MORE  COMPLETELY  IS  VIRTUE 

ITS  OWN  REWARD 

MAY  we  conclude  then,  without  qualification, 
that  the  moral  choice  has  on  affectional 
grounds  the  same  justification  in  the  individual 
life  as  in  the  general  life?  Can  we  be  assured, 
in  other  words,  that  virtue,  whatever  the  sacrifice 
it  demands,  brings  its  own  recompense? 

The  common-sense  of  mankind,  not  always  a 
safe  guide  perhaps,  shrinks  from  such  a  conclusion. 
A  cool  head,  applying  the  hedonic  test,  and  com- 
paring the  losses  of  an  uncompromising  virtue ' 
with  the  gains  of  the  temporising  spirit  which 
listens  to  the  suggestions  of  policy,  might  think 
it  reasonable,  on  occasion,  to  make  certain  con- 
cessions. And,  indeed,  a  man  with  little  inclina- 
tion to  compromise,  a  man  of  courage  and  resolve, 
might  find  it  hard  to  prove  that  he  runs  no 
risk,  if  loyal  to  his  ideals,  of  unrequited  self-sacrifice 
or  absolute  loss.  The  fragmentary  nature  of 
human  experience  and  the  relative  contingency 
of  human  events  in  general  as  effects  of  an  in- 
finity of  causes  seem  to  infect  every  aspect  of  life 
«y  257 


258  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

with  uncertainty.  Apparently  any  rule  of  action 
may  at  some  time  fail  us.  Intelligence  may  be 
baffled,  courage  may  be  defeated,  affection  may  be 
spent  on  ingratitude ;  and,  in  view  of  the  mistakes, 
miscarriages,  and  misfortunes  which  bulk  so 
largely  in  the  individual  life,  it  would  seem  that 
no  principle  is  so  secure  that  we  may  embrace  it 
with  an  assurance  that  is  absolute. 

It  may  be  urged,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this 
uncertainty  affects  only  the  external  form  of  our 
experience.  The  issue  of  our  acts,  the  course  of 
events,  our  tenure  of  life  and  of  the  perishable 
goods  of  life,  are  indeed  incalculable. 

"  Chances  mock 
And  changes  fill  the  cup  of  alteration 
With  divers  liquors." 

But  the  reaction  of  conduct  upon  consciousness 
takes  a  definite  and  more  or  less  calculable  course. 
Human  nature  is  a  finite  system.  It  develops 
in  function  and  feeling  and  is  degraded  or  refined 
in  accordance  with  laws  of  its  own.  In  choosing 
a  mode  of  life,  therefore,  which  is  founded  deeply 
and  securely  in  the  laws  of  our  nature  the  risks 
attending  the  choice  must  be  such  as  affect  the 
outer  rather  than  the  inner  experience,  the  acci- 
dental form  rather  than  the  subjective  value  of 
life.  And  in  the  appraisal  of  ultimate  values, 
according  to  the  Stoic's  contention,  the  attitude 
of  the  spirit,  as  the  only  thing  within  our  power. 


Morality  and  Happiness  259 

IS  the  only  thing  which  counts.      The  moral  atti- 
tude, at  any  rate,  is  the  attitude  of  a  spirit  sane 
and  whole,  that  is,  the  attitude  most  consonant 
with  the  nature  of  man ;  and,  counting  the  goods  of 
life  at  their  real  value,  what  risk  worth  considering 
can  be  run  in  the  conservation  of  spiritual  sanity 
and  health?    The  rule  of  life,  while  life  runs  on, 
would  seem  to  be  plain.    The  profoundest  interest 
of  the  human  spirit  is  in  the  right,  and  if  the 
choice  should  lie  between   merely  external  loss 
and  the  degradation  of  the  affectional  tone  which 
follows  betrayal  of  the  right,  it  were  better,  in 
view  of  that  which  gives  life  its  chief  value,  to 
surrender  the  outer  good.     So  the  Stoic. 

But  death,  we  may  be  reminded,  concludes 
both  the  external  and  the  internal  life,  and  if 
death  is  the  sacrifice,  the  whole  meed  of  virtue 
must  be  found  in  the  forerunning  life.  That  such 
a  sacrifice  has  indeed  a  forerunning  compensation 
we  have  seen  good  reason  to  believe.  But  is  the 
compensation  in  such  case  adequate? 

It  would  seem  that  the  answer  cannot  be  in  all 
cases  the  same.  If  there  be  a  creature  human 
in  form  but  so  like  an  animal  that  it  lives  only 
for  animal  gratification,  loss  of  life  for  such  a 
creature  would  simply  be  uncompensated  loss. 
Doubtless  there  is  no  such  creature,  human  nature 
being  essentially  social,  and  therefore  to  a  certain 
extent  moral ;  but  the  nearer  a  human  being  ap- 
proaches to  the  brutish  type  the  less  adequate  is 


26o  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

the  forerunning  compensation  for  the  sacrifice  of 
life  or  indeed  for  any  moral  sacrifice.     To  persons 
verir  near  this  type  the  moral  appeal  is  therefore 
vain.     It  must  be  supplemented  by  fear.    But  the 
body  of  civilised  society  is  made  up  of  men  and 
women  with  a  fairly  developed  social  nature,  which 
renders  them  susceptible  to  moral  pain  and  moral 
satisfaction,  and  therefore  amenable  to  moral  dis- 
cipline and  treatment.     Manifestly  it  is  to  such 
persons  alone  that  the  question  of  compensation 
for  moral  sacrifice  is  applicable,  and  it  applies  with 
increasing  force  as  the  social  or  moral  nature  is 
more  highly  developed.    But  we  must  allow,  per- 
haps, measuring  the  good  of  life  by  the  satisfaction 
it  yields,  that  a  moral  sacrifice  which  mvolves 
the  surrender  of  life  cannot,  for  certain  gross  and 
callous  natures,  be  offset  entirely  by  the  gains 
brought  by  the  principle  for  which  the  sacrifice 
is  made.     In  other  words,  it  would  seem  that 
there  must  be  cases  in  which  the  sacrifice  of  life 
involves  a  greater  loss  of  satisfaction  or  pleasure 
than  the  sacrifice  of  principle. 

In  cases  like  these  we  cannot  deny  that  the 
moral  choice  involves  a  certain  risk.  And  possibly 
most  men  feel  the  hazards  of  virtue.  But,  as 
we  have  said,  there  is  no  principle  of  life  or  of 
action  that  is  not  subject  to  the  contingency  of 
human  affairs.  Yet  the  principle  is  not  neces- 
sarily  impeached  because  of  the  risks  attendant 
on  its  choice.     One  plays  the  game  of  life  accord- 


Morality  and  Happiness  261 

ing  to  its  rules,  and  whatever  the  theory  which  a 
man  embraces  he  cannot  hope  to  reap  the  bene- 
fits of  his  theory  if  he  is  unwilling  to  incur  its 
risks.  In  other  words,  a  man  cannot  get  much 
out  of  life  unless  he  is  capable  of  risking  his  life, 
and  if  a  man  elects  to  be  governed  by  the  moral 
law  he  loses  the  supreme  benefit  of  the  law  unless 
he  is  willing  to  face  death  as  the  possible  conse- 
quence of  his  choice.  A  half-hearted  or  vacillating 
morality  can  hardly  be  called  morality  or  yield 
much  moral  satisfaction,  for  the  moral  law  is  in  its 
claim  as  social  law  paramount,  and  to  shrink 
from  the  risks  which  its  observance  incurs  is 
practically  to  abandon  the  law  as  a  principle  of 
conduct.  It  is  as  if  a  man  assuming  to  be  brave 
should  be  found  full  of  courage  save  when  his 
safety  is  threatened.  He  has  neither  the  quality 
nor  the  meed  of  courage. 

It  should  be  noted,  moreover,  that  there  is  a 
compensatory  reaction  in  the  feelings  even  for 
such  risk  as  virtue  may  be  deemed  to  hazard. 
The  pleasure  we  take  in  any  pursuit  varies,  other 
things  equal,  with  the  interest  we  feel  in  the  result, 
and  our  interest  in  any  projected  end  is  never 
quite  complete  without  some  spice  of  fear  that  the 
project  may  miscarry.  Certainty  dtdls  the  edge 
of  desire,  and  attainment  itself,  if  assured  from 
the  first,  fails  to  satisfy.  Whether  we  are  in  sport 
or  in  earnest,  some  perilous  condition,  some  risk 
of  failure,  is  necessary  to  evoke  and  sustain  such 


;in 


262    Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

interest  as  incites  the  will  to  that  supreme  effort 
on  which  supreme  satisfaction  depends.  May 
we  not  say,  then,  that  if  man  in  his  great  moral 
struggle  ran  no  hazard,  the  moral  purpose  itself 
would  be  weakened,  and  the  moral  life,  losing 
the  sense  of  possible  loss,  would  lose  also  that 
supreme  interest  in  the  right  and  that  sense  of 
exaltation  which  attend  the  power  to  make 
sacrifice  for  the  right?  The  principle  is  general. 
The  uncertain  tenure  of  any  good  appears  to  be 
essential  to  an  appreciative  consciousness  of  the 
good.  A  friend  were  less  a  friend  were  there  no 
dread  of  parting;  art,  knowledge,  action  were  less 
satisfying  were  the  time  to  create,  to  learn,  and  to 
do,  not  so  short ;  and  life  itself  were  less  vital  and 
sweet  could  we  escape  from  the  shadow  of  the 
wings  of  death.  Fear,  failure,  and  death  give 
form  and  relief  to  hope,  achievement,  and  life; 
and  though  Virtue,  threading  the  mazes  of  ex- 
perience, may  risk  life  and  much  that  is  precious 
in  life,  the  possibility  of  loss  but  endears  the  face 
of  Virtue  to  her  followers.  Goodness  is  in  itself 
the  more  blest  for  the  good  which  it  may  lose. 

Our  conclusion,  then,  is  that  the  moral  life  is  so 
far  justified  by  its  effect  in  the  feeling  of  the 
moral  agent  that  we  cannot  say,  speaking  of  the 
ordinary  social  unit,  that  the  virtuous  choice  is 
ever,  from  the  hedonic  point  of  view,  a  mistaken 
choice.  For  men  really  sharing  the  social  life 
the   presumptions  are  all   in  its  favour.     More 


Morality  and  Happiness  263 

than  this  it  were  perhaps  rash  to  affirm.     Men 
stand  on  so  many  different  moral  planes,  the 
facts  of  any  moral  situation  are  so  complex,  and 
feeling  is  so  elusive  and  so  difficult  to  compare 
and  appraise,  that  proof  positive  in  any  particular 
case  can  hardly  be  supplied.  ^     But  thus  much 
seems  certain:   while  we  may  admit  that  below 
a  certain  level  of  moral  development  the  moral 
motive  as  we  understand  it  is  inadequate,  never- 
theless  the   strengthening   and    refining   of   the 
moral  habit  intensifies  the  pains  of  immorality 
on  the  one  hand  and  increases  the  satisfactions 
of  moral  conduct  on  the  other ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
moral  progress  of  the  individual  makes  it  pro- 
gressively more  certain  and  more  apparent  that 
virtue  is,  in  the  feeling  of  the  subject,  its  own  re- 
ward.     And  we  may  add,  where  the  virtue  is 
complete    there   doubtless    its   compensation   is 
without  hazard  or  qualification  complete. 

>  flat  6  rrepl  tQv  TpaKTwv  X670S  riJiry  Kal  oiK  AKpipQs  «J^/Xci 
X^eaOai.     Aristotle:  Eth.  Nic.,  II.,  ii.,  3. 

Everything  said  on  moral  subjects  ought  to  be  said 
in  outline,  and  not  with  exactness.     (Browne's  tr.) 


SECTION   VII 
Scope  of  Morality 
CHAPTER  XXVIII 

MORAL     DISCIPLINE    PRESUPPOSES      OTHER     DISCI- 
PLINES.     ALL    MERGED    IN    RELIGION 

THE  moral  law,  as  we  have  seen,  is  based  on 
the  promptings  of  the  social  impulse  and  the 
requirements  of  the  associative  life.  It  is  the 
law  of  the  socialised  will.  And  its  general  adop- 
tion is  an  essential  condition  of  that  free  union 
of  independent  minds  which  constitutes  a  true 
society,  or  a  society  in  which  human  nature 
may  find  the  incentive,  the  means,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity for  its  completest  expression. 

It  is  important  to  note,  however,  that  while 
the  matter  of  ethics  or  morals  is  conduct  in 
general,  the  science  of  ethics  is  not,  strictly  speak- 
ing, a  general  science  of  life.  We  have  seen  how 
it  is  parted  off  from  politics  and  jurisprudence, 
sciences  with  which  it  is  closely  conjoined.  It 
is  much  more  sharply  distinguished  from  the 
natural  sciences,  from  industrial  and  the  finer  arts, 
and  from  a  host  of  special  disciplines  and  pursuits 

264 


Scope  of  Morality 


265 


for  which  it  offers  no    specific  guidance.      For 
such  guidance  we  must  turn  to  the  arts  and  pur- 
suits themselves.     Ethics  is  not  to  be  conceived, 
however,  as  applying  to  any  isolated  sphere  of  con- 
duct, or  as  standing  entirely  aloof  from  any  form 
of   volitional    action    whatever.     The    arts   and 
pursuits  of  life,  being  themselves  a  social  product, 
all  have  social  and  moral  significance;  and  they 
cannot  be  pursued  to  their  perfect  results  except  in 
that  '*sad  sincerity,"  or  fidelity  to  the  aspirations 
of  humanity,  which  is,  one  may  say,  the  substance 
of  the  moral  habit.     But  though  morality  has  re- 
spect to  all  action  and  all  volition,  it  has  but  one 
end  directly  in  view:  its  aim  is  to  give  such 
form  and  direction  to  the  will  as  shall  prove 
most  effective  in  promoting  the  social  union  of  our 
kind.     This  is  the  office  which  makes  its  discipline 
specific.     It  deals  with  life  as  a  whole,  and  in  a 
sense  indeed  with  life  in  all  its  parts,  but  its  dis- 
tinctive function  is  to  socialise  all  functions.     And 
it  owes  its  dignity  and  authority  to  the  vastness 
of  the  interests  which  depend  upon  the  discharge 
of  its  office. 

But  the  value  of  the  social  union  which  it  is  the 
purpose  of  morality  to  establish  depends  on  the 
equipment  and  effectiveness  of  the  social  units. 
If  we  could  conceive  of  men  as  associated,  without 
art  or  science  or  letters,  in  perfect  amity  and  help- 
fulness, such  a  union  might  represent  a  certain 
social  ideal.      There  are  inoffensive  animals  who 


266  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

present  some  approach  to  such  an  ideal.  But  the 
commanding  importance  of  the  social  union  for 
which  we  are  prepared  by  moral  discipline  rests 
upon  the  fact  that  it  is  an  association,  not  of 
animals  or  of  sweet-natured  imbeciles,  but  of  men 
socially  conjoined  in  the  exercise  and  development 
of  every  capacity  of  man.  Moral  discipline  should 
therefore  anticipate,  as  it  must  be  supplemented 
by,  the  several  special  disciplines.  The  various 
interests  of  the  conscious  subject,  sensuous, 
cognitive,  artistic,  speculative,  practical,  all  de- 
mand recognition.  Their  demand  rests,  in  fact, 
in  the  same  organic  need  as  the  moral  demand 
itself,  namely,  the  need  of  the  organism  to  dis- 
charge its  functions;  and  the  moral  demand 
is  supreme  only  in  the  sense  that  its  fiilfilment 
in  the  establishment  of  the  associative  life  is  the 
supreme  condition  of  the  complete  development 
of  our  functional  capacity. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  increasing  complexity 
of  the  associative  life  which  follows  development 
of  capacity  and  increase  of  knowledge  brings  new 
matter  to  which  we  may  address  ourselves  in  the 
spirit  of  the  moral  aim.  As  the  pursuits  of  life 
multiply,  the  points  of  sympathetic  contact 
multiply.  Though  the  organisation  of  society 
tends  in  certain  directions  to  the  specialisation 
of  function,  it  finds  the  individual,  as  it  advances, 
a  constituent  and  sympathising  element  in  a 
broader  general  life.     A  man's  very  craft  or  voca- 


Scope  of  Morality 


267 


tion  draws  him  out  of  himself,  linking  his  activities 
to  those  of  his  fellows,  and  he  acquires  through 
membership  in  the  general  body  social,  civil,  po- 
litical, and  intellectual  interests  which  stimulate 
his  own  development.     The  richer  the  general  life, 
or  the  greater  its  progress  in  literature,  science, 
art,  philosophy,  and  methods  of  social  organisa- 
tion, the  richer  the  individual  life.    Each  advances 
with  the  other,  and  the  sympathy  which  expressed 
itself  at  first  in  a  few  rude  affections  and  tribal 
instincts  binds  at  length  the  individual  to  the 
race,  and  expands  into  that  most  composite  and 
most  powerful  of  feelings,  the  passion  for  humanity, 
which  is  the  stimulus  of  thought,  the  inspiration 
of  art,  and  the  motive  of  that  self-renimciation 
which  is  the  completest  self-expression. 

Moral  progress  thus  depends  on  general  pro- 
gress.     Neither  the  moral  law  nor   the  moral 
consciousness  can  be  developed  by  itself.   Each  ex- 
pands by  application  to  an  expanding  life.    The 
moral  life  has,  it  is  true,  an  end  of  its  own,  namely, 
to  socialise  the  will,  or  to  re-cast  the  general  form 
of  our  life  in  the  social  interest.     But  it  pre- 
supposes a  body  of  instincts,  habits,  and  occupa- 
tions, upon  which  the  social  form  may  be  imposed, 
and  it  cannot  develop  save  through  the  develop- 
ment of  the  material  upon  which  it  works.    It  is, 
in  a  word,  not  a  closed  sphere,  or  a  distinct  and 
separate  life ;  it  is  the  infusion  of  the  social  spirit 
into  every  impulsion  of  life. 


268  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 


And  as  the  moral  life  cannot  be  isolated  from 
the  general  life  of  the  self,  neither  can  the  self  be 
severed  from  the  social  body  of  which  it  is  an 
element.     The   self,   being   a   social   product,   is 
true  to  its  nature  only  when  it  shapes  its  activities 
in  conformity  with  general  or  social  ends.     It 
can  never  be  conceived  as  in  itself  complete.     As 
the    moral    feeling    which    torments    itself  with 
continued  self-inspection,  self-disparagement,  and 
self-correction   becomes   egoistic  and    in   a  real 
sense  immoral,  so  self-culture  or  self-development, 
if  conceived  in  too  strict  a  sense,  tends  to  the 
degeneration  of  the  self.    The  intellect  demands 
the  stimulating  service  of  generic  and  impersonal 
aims.    The  ego  must  be  conceived  in  its  social  es- 
sence, in  its  need  of  human  sympathy  and  support, 
and  in  its  dependence  for  supreme  inspiration 
upon  ideals  which  transcend  the  self.     Self-respect 
may  remind  us,  indeed,  that  the  self  remains 
throughout  a  constitutive  element  of  the  social 
union,  and  that  there  can  be  no  social  progress 
apart  from  the  progress  of  the  social  elements  or 
units.    But  the  processes  of  life  run  forth  of  the 
self:  the  stream  of  all  healthful  activity  tends 
outwards.    The  self  is  most  its  own  when  lost  in 
its  object,  and  it  is  most  completely  occupied 
and  therefore  most  completely  satisfied  when  de- 
voted to  the  service  of  universal  ends,  ends  in 
which  the  self  is  absorbed  and  forgotten. 

But  the  idea  of  the  self  is  yet  incomplete  if 


Scope  of  Morality 


269 


the  self  is  conceived  merely  as  an  element  in  the 
general  life  of  human  kind.     The  broad  current  of 
humanity's  life  is  itself  but  a  phase  of  that  eternal 
process  which,  in  accordance  with  the  analogies 
of  human  thought,  we  may  call  the  Universal 
Life.     And  the  self,  reading  its  own  nature  in  the 
light  of  its  own  experience,  and  finding  in  the 
service  of  humanity  the  indispensable  condition 
of  its  own  supreme  activity  and  satisfaction,  recog- 
nises in  this  condition  an  aspect  of  the  Universal 
Will  or  Law  upon  which  the  self  and  humanity 
and  all  things  depend.      In  this  recognition  the 
moral  self  becomes  religious.    The  moral  ideal, 
strictly  conceived,  is  but  an  aspect  of  a  more 
general  ideal,  in  which  the  self  is  conceived  in  the 
fulness  of  its  functional  life.     But  the  idea  of  the 
self  is  further  expanded  and  merges  in  the  idea  of 
Man,  which,  conceived  in  the  perfection  of  all 
its  qualities  as  a  goal  or  term  within  the  processes 
of  the  Universal  Life,  is  the  religious  ideal;  and 
the  progress  of   man  as  he   advances  in  social 
amity  and  unity  towards  the  realisation  of  this 
ideal  is  the  divine  event  in  which,  for  us,  the 
infinite  activity  takes  intelligible  direction  and 
character.     It  is  true  that  the  Infinite,  as  such, 
transcends  all  qualification,  all   limit.      But   to 
apprehend  in  any  sense  the  Infinite  we  must  in 
some  manner  define  or  seize  upon  some  intelli- 
gible aspect  of  the  Infinite.     Here  it  is  the  supreme 
human  interest  which  defines.     For  us  all  else  is 


I' 

1 


I 


1 


270  Function,  Feeling,  and  Conduct 

irrelevant.  The  Infinite  is  in  the  religious  con- 
sciousness  identified  with  that  aspect  of  universal 
power  which  tends  in  all  and  through  all  to  the 
manifestation  or  accomplishment  of  our  human 
ideals.  To  religious  feeling  all  that  in  nature 
or  in  human  nature  is  fine  or  excellent  appeals 
as  the  gift  of  the  Infinite  Giver,  in  whom  it 
thus  sees  the  source  of  all  beauty,  all  wisdom, 
all  goodness.  But  the  religious  consciousness, 
impressed  by  the  gravity  of  its  perennial  conflict 
with  moral  evil,  is  preoccupied  mainly  with  moral 
ideals,  and  finds  by  preference  a  symbol  for  all 
excellence  in  the  Good.  Hence  the  Infinite  is  to 
the  religious  sense  Infinite  Goodness.  In  this 
habit  of  the  religious  mind  we  see  that  the  moral 
spirit  is  still  dominant  in  religious  feeling.  And 
possibly  it  will  remain  so,  even  when  religion,  as 
the  quest  of  the  ideal,  expands  to  the  full  meas- 
ure of  its  office  and  adopts  into  its  cult  the  pursuit 
of  all  excellence ;  for  it  is  only  through  the  associa- 
tion of  human  effort  in  fraternal  union,  which  is 
the  moral  aim,  that  humanity  can  press  all  its 
energies  to  ideal  achievement  and  measurably 
fulfil  its  aspirations. 


INDEX 


Albee,  Ernest,  98 

American  Journal  of  Physiology,  45 

Aristotle,  56,  63,  148,  203,  253,  263 

B 

Bacon,  151 

Bain,  A.,  44,  96,  100 

Baldwin,  J.  Mark,  132,  146 

Belot,  Gustav,  121 

Bentham,  J.,  55,  186 

Berkeley,  15 

Binet  et  Henri,  92 

Bosanquet,  B.,  34,  85,  87,  102,  119,  123 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  6,  47,  83,  164,  207 

Brown,  John,  73 

Brown,  Thomas,  81 

Buckle,  H.  T..  138 


Calderwood,  H.,  76 

Causation,  5,  188  ^. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  76 

Clifford,  W.  K.,  82 

Comte,  Auguste,  138,  156 

Conscious  choice,  36 

Conscious  ends,  23  ff. 

Consciousness  and  the  competitive  struggle,  117 

Continuity  of  the  conscious  life,  69 

Courage,  156 

Cudworth,  Ralph,  76 

271 


'I 


272 


Index 


Darwin,  Charles,  23,  134,  i44,  iSS 
Descartes,  10,  11 
Duty,  151 

E 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  190,  201,  20a 
Everett,  W.  G.,  90 


Feeling  and  choice,  40,  41 

Feeling,  how  revived,  89 
•    Feeling,  not  an  object  of  volition,  93 

Ferrier,  David,  45,  78,  87 

Fichte,  72 

Flint,  Austin,  67 

"Force"  of  ideas,  38 

Fouillde,  A.,  13,  36,  61,  123,  194,  206 

Fowler  and  Wilson,  35 
-    Freedom  and  causation,  198 

Freedom  and  necessity,  iSg  ff. 

Freedom  of  the  will,  199  ff. 

Function  and  feeling,  44  ff. 

Functions  as  related  to  ends,  60  ff. 


•'Gap  "  between  body  and  mind,  10  ff, 
Godwin,  William,  190 
Goethe,  70 
Green,  T.  H.,  76 
Grotius,  Hugo,  76 

H 

Happiness  and  progress,  322  ff. 
Harmony,  72  ^. 
Hartmann,  Eduard  von,  222 
Hedonism,  86 


I 


Index 


273 


Hegel,  145 

Hobbes,  132,  202,  210 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  120 

Hodgson,  Shadworth  H.,  72,  203 

Hoffding,  H.,  3,  31,  38,  44,  77,  87,  90,  93,  100.  102 

Home,  Henry,  81 

Houssay,  Fr^d^ric,  118 

Hume,  David,  79,  80,  190,  203 

Hutcheson,  Francis,  80 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  120 


Indolence,  156 
Infinite,  the,  iv.,  3,  269 
Inhibition  of  ideas,  91,  92 
»    Integrity,  158 


James,  William,  39,  59,  61,  97,  100,  104,  256 
0  Jurisprudence  and  ethics,  148 
«    Justice,  150 


Kames,  Lord,  81 
Kant,  7,  76,  171,  172 
Kfllpe,  Oswald,  34,  48,  102 


Ladd,  George  T.,  49 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  81,  229,  247 
Lehmann,  89 
Locke,  201,  202 


M 


Maine,  H.  J.  S.,  x.,  149,  161 
Marshall,  H.  R.,  46 
Martin,  H.  N.,  67 
x8 


274 


Index 


=• 


■ft 


i 


Martineau,  James,  82,  201 
Matter,  a 

McKenzie,  John  S.,  83,  87 
Mill,  J.  S.,  106,  138,  196 
Moral  philosophy,  viii. 
•   Moral  sense,  81  ^. 
Moral  spirit,  the,  162  if. 
Morals  and  science,  iv.  ff. 
Mtinsterberg,  H.,  49,  61,  92,  106 

N 

Natural  law  of  choice,  109 
Natural  penalties,  186 
Nature,  how  far  definable,  4,  5 


O 


Organic  unity  of  nature,  6,  9 


t    ! 


1;' 


Paulhan,  F.,  120,  179 

Paulsen,  Friedrich,  83 

Philosophy  and  morals,  vi. 

Pioger,  Julien,  123 

Plato,  5,  72,  134 

Pleasurable  feeling,  conditions  of,  50  ff. 

"Pleasure"  an  abstraction,  86  fj. 

Pleasure  and  pain,  30  /jF. 

Pleasures,  quantity  and  quality  of,  10 1  ff. 

Politics  and  ethics,  148 

Pollock,  Frederick,  172 

Power,  immanence  of,  190  ff. 

Price,  Richard,  76 

Principle  of  choice,  28,  108,  115 

Principles  of  social  union,  140 

Proximate  ends,  62  ff. 


Quantity  and  quality  of  pleasures,  10 1  ff. 


Index 


27s 


Rational  law  of  choice,  1 10 

•  Reason  as  a  moral  faculty,  75  ^. 

•  Religion  and  ethics,  149,  269 
Responsibility,  limitations  of,  181  ff, 
Ribot,  Th.,  20,  22,  44,  49,  70 
Right,  the,  147,  151 

•  Rights,  basis  of,  171 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  222 

Royce,  Josiah,  74,  146,  173.  245 

S 

Schopenhauer,  A.,  212 

Science  and  morals,  iv.  ff. 

Self-control,  158 

Self-defence,  169 
•    Self-realisation,  83,  iii 

Seneca,  158 

Seth,  James,  76,  99 

Shaftesbury,  130 

Sidgwick,  H..  206,  213 

Simcox,  Edith,  83 

Social  feeling,  constitutional,  130 

Social  union,  principles  of,  140 
'    Society  and  civilisation,  118 

Sorley,  W.  R.,  85.  87 

Spencer,  H.,  11,  12,44,  87 

Spinoza,  11,  63,  140,  195 

Standard  of  values,  41 

Stephen,  Leslie,  82,  119.  123,  239 

Sturt,  Henry,  31 
Sully,  James,  33,  47 
Sympathetic  ideation,  126  ff. 


Taylor,  A.  E..  35 
Teleology,  7 
Titchener,  E.  B.,  89 


276 


Index 


u 


•     Ultimate  ends,  62  ff. 

Unity  of  conscious  life,  69 


Vitality  of  nature,  3 
Volitional  choice,  38,  99 
*     Volition  and  causation,  197 


w 


Wallace,  A.  R.,  25 
Ward,  J.,  14,  67 
Whewell,  William,  76 
Williams,  Monier,  24* 
Will  implies  an  end,  206,  207.  209 
•    Will  to  will,  212 

Wundt,  W.,  13,  48,  103,  105,  206,  216 


Ziehen,  Th.,  34,  61,  103 


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